Yesterday, the PA House debated HB 934, the PA Voter ID Bill for six hours before taking a break. They will return and may vote on the bill today. Calls now to your State Representatives can help stop this bill from proceeding.

This bill is patterned on a ALEC template that a number of states have followed. These states, all of which are states where the legislature, as well as the governorship are GOP controlled have one effort in mind, and that is suppressing Democrat votes in the upcoming Presidential election. The efforts are rationalized by suggesting that they will improve voter integrity and stop illegal aliens from voting, but in reality, voter fraud of this type is very rare, and does not have a strong impact on vote outcomes. This is not to say that voter Fraud is unimportant, but rather, the question is why spend millions on a problem that can not be quantified as a huge problem?

The bill as passed in some other states, has been deemed unconstitutional, and full of errors. If Pennsylvania passes the bill, the state can expect lawsuits and a chaotic election season at a time with the voice of the voter is truly needed more than ever.

The original bill passed by the House was more strict and allowed no ID’s to be used for voting access except a current PA Driver’s license or state issued non-driver’s ID. This doesn’t sound so bad on the surface, but if you stop and look at how that scales up for the state the problems become clear. There are huge numbers of folks who have neither of these, and those individuals are disproportionately college students, the poor, the elderly, and trans persons. In the Senate, the bill was revised to allow a few other forms of ID, but even the Senate law would keep many current residents from the ability to vote.

Opponents of the bill, are not opposed to cracking down on Voter Fraud, but seek a solution that accomplishes that goal while at the same time does not keep legitimate voters from their constitutional right, and doesn’t waste state funds.

Call your state Representative NOW to tell them to oppose this bill.