You want ID to vote? Just get a ride to seasonal ferry across river to office open only 4.5 hrs/week

[JPZenger]

Last edited Wed Jul 31, 2013, 03:38 PM - Edit history (8)

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20130731_State_ends_testimony_in_voter_ID_case.html

The State has rested their case in defense of the PA. voter ID law at the trial.

Excerpt:

"American Civil Liberties Union legal director Witold Walczak, representing the petitioners, demonstrated the burdens facing those without their own vehicles by using Marks' own community.

Marks said he lives in Liverpool, north of Harrisburg, while the closest Department of Transportation driver's license center is in Elizabethville, across the Susquehanna River. It is open only one day a week and reachable directly only by seasonal ferry. Otherwise, someone would have to travel a circuitous 34-mile route taking nearly an hour to reach Elizabethville by road.

Marks said his polling place in Liverpool is only a block from his house."

Grandma, make sure you keep the wheels on your wheelchair locked, hold on tight, and don't park yourself too close to the sides.



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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/30/pennsylvania-voter-id-confusion_n_3676911.html

"Earlier this month, the chairman of Pennsylvania’s Republican Party may have inadvertently strengthened the latter line of argument when he suggested that the controversy surrounding the law helped GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney cut into President Barack Obama’s margin of victory last November. In a widely circulated clip, Rob Gleason was asked by an interviewer for the Pennsylvania Cable Network if “all the attention drawn to voter ID affected last year’s elections.”

“Yeah, I think a little bit,” Gleason responded. “We probably had a better election. Think about this, we cut Obama by 5 percent, which was big. … He beat [2008 GOP presidential nominee John] McCain by 10 percent, he only beat Romney by 5 percent. I think that probably photo ID helped a bit in that.”

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http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/voter-id-trial-day-10-controversy-continues-courtroom-closed-public

Excerpts:

This blog explains another one of the many problems. When a person requests a non-drivers ID from the State, the State will not send out the photo ID by regular mail until after the person's name shows up on the state list of registered voters. However, because the counties are overwhelmed with voter registrations close to election day, they often don't enter new voters into the state system until a couple days before the election. Therefore, if the State waits until the name shows up on the database before they mail the ID, the ID would not be received by the voter before the election.

The link also describes how many colleges and universities still do not issue IDs with photos and dates that meet the requirements of PA. law. Also, PA residents who attend colleges in another state cannot use those IDs to vote. Anyone can use their gun permit to vote. (As part of a national trend, many young people have delayed getting driver's licenses, particularly in urban areas.)


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This situation is even worse than I thought. It appears that you can only get a voting photo ID during the extremely limited hours when the state drivers license centers are open, not when the photo centers are open.

In the case listed above, the Elizabethville drivers license center is only open from 9:15 am to 3:45 on Thursdays. However, the ferry across the river only operates from 11 to 5 pm on Thursdays. Even if you have a car that can be placed on the ferry, you still only have a window of about 2 hours to get your photo ID, and still have time to drive back and forth and still make the ferry.

In many other rural areas of the state, the drivers license centers are often only open 2 to 4 days a week. In most parts of the state (even in big cities), they shut down at 4:15, except one day of the week they are open until 6. If you work during the day, or if the person giving you a ride works during the day, you are screwed.

The voter ID is supposed to be free, but it is only free if you know to complete and sign an affidavit certifying that you have no other form of ID for voting. Otherwise, you will be charged.

http://www.dmv.state.pa.us/voter/voteridlaw.shtml

[Dustlawyer]

1. Spoken like a proud Amerikan! Freedom and equality mean nothing to these guys!

Next time they raise their "your not wearing a flag pin" bullshit I will tell them what they can do with the pin! How hypocritical is it to speak of "freedom in America" while you are trying to take away the right to vote from large swaths of Americans. They are traitors plain and simple!

[JPZenger]

2. I don't know why you couldn't get a photo ID to vote?

Paraphrased from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Voter: How was I supposed to know how to get a Photo ID?

Corbettite: The regulations have been available in the Dept. of State office for the last nine months."

Voter: "As soon as I heard I went straight to see them. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

Corbettite: "But the requirements were on display ..."

Voter: "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them. Then, I had to bring my own flashlight."

Corbettite: "Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

Voter: "So had the stairs."

Corbettite: "But look, you found the Voter ID requirements didn't you?"

Voter: "Yes, I did. They were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

[frazzled]

4. Like the Circumlocution Office, from Dickens's Little Dorrit

"I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea prison of the name Dorrit, who has been there many years. I wish to investigate his confused affairs, so far as to ascertain whether it may not be possible, after this lapse of time, to ameliorate his unhappy condition. The name of Mr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me as representing some highly influential interest among his creditors. Am I correctly informed?"

It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, on any account whatever to give a straightforward answer, Mr Barnacle said, "Possibly."

"On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as a private individual?"

"The Circumlocution Department, sir," Mr Barnacle replied, "may have possibly recommended - possibly - I cannot say - that some public claim against the insolvent estated of a firm or copartnership to which this person may have belonged, should be enforced. The question may have been, in the course of official business, referred to the Circumlocution Department for its consideration. The Department may have either originated, or confirmed, a Minute making that recommendation."

"I assume this to be the case, then."

"The Circumlocution Department," said Mr Barnacle, "is not responsible for any gentleman's assumptions."

"May I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real state of the case?"

"It is competent," said Mr Barnacle, "to any member of the—Public," mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his natural enemy, "to memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such formalities as are required to be observed in so doing, may be known on application to the proper branch of that department."

"Which is the proper branch?"

"I must refer you," returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, "to the department itself for a formal answer to that inquiry."

"Excuse my mentioning—"

"The Department is accessible to the—Public." Mr Barnacle was always checked a little by that word of impertinent signification, "if the—Public approaches it according to the official forms; if the—Public does not approach it according to the official forms, the—Public has itself to blame."

[Ednahilda]

3. Holy smokes!!

How did the Repugs let this one slip by?
They need to cut back the hours of this center to a half-day every week and replace the ferry with a rowboat.

[lark]

5. Welcome to DU

Glad to have you here, like the snark as it's very well deserved.

[JPZenger]

6. Bump, to remind people of how horrible PA's Voter ID really was, before it was overturned

It will be appealed to the State Supreme court - which is now 5-4 Repubs. The Supremes are really slow at making decisions. The Chief Justice will be forced to retire in a year because of his age.