The two-week trial challenging the constitutionality of Pennsylvania\u2019s voter ID law ended today. Here\u2019s what we learned from the proceedings. Suffice to say, Pennsylvania Republicans didn\u2019t come out looking very good.<\/p>\n
1. A lot of voters don\u2019t have valid voter ID.<\/strong> University of Washington political scientist Matt Barreto, a witness for the plaintiffs (the suit was brought by the ACLU, the Advancement Project and other voting rights groups), found more than 1 million registered voters in Pennsylvania\u201412.8 percent of the electorate\u2014don\u2019t have sufficient voter ID. Moreover,379,000 registered voters don\u2019t have the underlying documents, such as a birth certificate, needed to obtain the right ID; 174,000 of them voted in 2008.<\/p>\n 2. The state doesn\u2019t know its own law very well.<\/strong> During the debate over the law in the state legislature, Secretary of the Commonwealth Carole Aichele repeatedly stated that 99 percent of Pennsylvania voters had the right ID. A subsequent study by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation found that 758,000 registered voters, 9.2 percent of the electorate, lacked a state-issued PennDot ID. During the trial, Pennsylvania State Department official Rebecca Oyler testified that she calculated the \u201c99 percent have ID\u201d figure in less than twenty-four hours while lacking sufficient data from the department of transportation. When pressed on the specifics of the law and the number of people who lack voter ID, Aichele responded: \u201cI don\u2019t know what the law says.\u201d<\/p>\n Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett was similarly clueless when asked what forms of ID besides state-issued ID are valid for voting purposes. \u201cThe other forms of ID can be student ID.\u201d Corbett said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working with the nursing homes to get people new ID. It can be military ID. There\u2019s two or three other forms\u2014right now, off the top of my head, I don\u2019t have it here in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n