A trial that will determine the future of Pennsylvania’s hotly debated Voter ID law opened in Harrisburg this week.
The trial started Monday with testimony from several witnesses who offered personal accounts of the detrimental effect of the 2012 law.
The measure, spearheaded and supported by state Republicans, requires voters to produce valid, government-issued identification to gain access to the voting booth.
Among the complaints against the measure are that it disenfranchises poor, minority and elderly voters, who are more likely than other populations to not have government-issued ID. It could also impact transgender and gender-nonconforming voters whose physical presentation does not match the photo on their ID cards.
Some Democrats contend the measure was an effort to keep Democratic voters from the polls.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson blocked the law from going into effect in October but left the door open for it to be enforced in 2013, and did not rule on the broader question of the law’s constitutionality. Plaintiffs, including the NAACP, the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters and the Homeless Advocacy Project, argue it would violate voters’ rights to equal protection.
The Department of State created a free voter ID card for those lacking proper ID, and did agree to leave gender markers off, making the cards the first state-issued ID to do so.
However, Michael Rubin, attorney for the plaintiffs, said in his opening arguments before Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley on Monday that imposing this new regulation is burdensome for Pennsylvania voters and could disenfranchise up to 900,000 people. Rubin noted that PennDOT does not have offices, where the new voter IDs are issued, in nine counties in the state.
Senior Deputy Attorney General Tim Keating, however, contended the law doesn’t pose a “sufficient burden” but rather a potential “inconvenience.”
Reading resident Marion Baker offered videotaped testimony Monday describing how she missed her first election in more than 50 years because of the confusion over the law. Her driver’s license recently expired and she said a medical condition would prevent her from getting to PennDOT and waiting in line for a new voter ID.
The trial is expected to last into next week.