PA Voter ID attorneys stipulate: No evidence of voter fraud
Thirty three voter ID laws have been passed, some of which are still awaiting implementing legislation and clearance under the Voting Rights Act.
(details at this link)
Is the new voter fraud legislation justified?
Thomas B. Edsall, contributing writer for the New York Times:
On March 14, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed into law legislation requiring all voters to have a photo ID. Under this legislation, voters going to the polls without a photo ID, including indigent voters unable to pay necessary fees to get an ID, will be allowed to cast ‘provisional’ ballots. If you are one of these voters, you will then ‘have six days to provide your photo ID and/or an affirmation to your county elections office to have your ballot count,’ according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.
‘I am signing this bill because it protects a sacred principle, one shared by every citizen of this nation. That principle is: one person, one vote,” Corbett declared. ‘It sets a simple and clear standard to protect the integrity of our elections.’
Republican State Representative Daryl Metcalfe, the bill’s sponsor, said on the state House floor: ‘I believe every single individual has a right to have their vote counted and if any individual vote is being canceled out by a fraudulently cast vote, that is one too many.’
A legal challenge to the law, currently before the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, has, however, raised questions about the legitimacy of justifications for voter fraud legislation. On July 12, attorneys defending the law on behalf of the state and the Corbett administration stipulated the following:
The Parties are not aware of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and do not have direct personal knowledge of in-person voter fraud elsewhere. Respondents will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania or elsewhere.
And that:Respondents will not offer any evidence that in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law.
In other words, the state cannot and will not produce any evidence of the kind of voter fraud the legislation has supposedly been crafted to prevent.