Why Voter ID laws will absolutely disenfranchise the poor - update

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I posted the following on Facebook earlier this morning, but I think the post and the accompanying article are worthy of sharing on a wider scale, if only because we humans often understand first-person accounts more viscerally than we do news stories or "in depth reports" coming from our mainstream media, whether that media source is to the right, left or attempting to straddle the fence of political and social ideologies.

Here's the Facebook post in all it's mundane glory:

Why Voter ID laws will absolutely disenfranchise the poor: I just ordered a birth certificate online through Vital-records. It was VERY expensive - $44.50, and I am fortunate enough to even have a credit card that I'm able to purchase my certificate online. Not only did I have to provide the credit card, I was also asked a number of questions about my past: 1. which street address I lived on more than 7 years ago, 2. the birth month of an old ex (I can't remember my own kid's birthdays, how on EARTH can I remember someone's birth month I haven't even thought about for 20 years???) 3. a vehicle type I had more than 5 years ago. There were two other questions as well that I cannot even remember now that were also asked of me.

I earn a decent living today, and today is my payday, and a $44.50 hit to my check is substantial because I live on a tight budget. I can assure you that when I was living in abject poverty, $44.50 was so far out of my reach it might as well have been a million, because I didn't have it, and if I was to pay it, my family would have gone hungry or we would have had to choose between a utility bill or the rent and getting the birth certificate.

Anyone with half a brain knows what voter ID laws are intended to do, and those who create them know damned good and well what they are doing.

And here is an article  from the Philadelphia Inquirer, and in case you were not aware, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson (who, incidentally, just happens to be a Republican - jis sayin) recently upheld the voter ID requirement:

Ruling upholding Pennsylvania's voter ID law misplaced its sympathy

By Patrick Kerkstra For The Inquirer Post a comment ALSO ON PHILLY.COM

13 key points on Pa. Court ruling upholding voter-ID law

Judge won't halt Pa. voter identification law

A week ago I wrote that the state's voter identification law had proven in Commonwealth Court to be morally indefensible.
Well, morality doesn't seem to have much to do with the law, at least so far as Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. was concerned. "I do not have the luxury of deciding this issue based on my sympathy for the witnesses or my esteem for counsel," he wrote in an opinion released Wednesday that upheld the voter ID requirement. "Rather, I must analyze the law, and apply it."
But what's been missing from the entire voter ID debate isn't sympathy, it's empathy. And it appears that Simpson - like a majority of the public - can't shake the mistaken assumption that most everyone who's legit already has ID, and that it's not a big deal for those people without to get one.
Photo ID to vote, Simpson wrote, "is a reasonable, nondiscriminatory, non-severe burden when viewed in the broader context of the widespread use of photo ID in daily life."
No doubt valid photo IDs are widely used in Simpson's social and professional circles. But his daily life bears little resemblance to the existence of many low-income Philadelphians who - not owning cars or judicial robes, and lacking the funds to travel by plane - have far less need for current state-issued photo ID than do the likes of Simpson.
And his finding that the law is "nondiscriminatory" is baffling in light of the state's own data, which show that there are far higher concentrations of voters without eligible ID in heavily minority voting districts, many of which are in Philadelphia.
Just as odd is Simpson's unexplained faith in the ability of state officials to issue IDs en masse and educate the public about the law before the Nov. 6 presidential election. Was Simpson not listening when Carol Aichele - the state's top voter ID official - said, under questioning from plaintiffs' attorneys, "I don't know what the law says"?
Indeed, Simpson seemed more worried about the sad plight of state officials in this whole episode than of those voters in danger of losing their ability to exercise one of citizenship's most fundamental rights.
Consider poor Jonathan Marks, who oversees administration of elections for the state. In court, Marks was asked how an injunction against voter ID would disrupt his planning. Marks responded equivocally.
A normal person might assume that not enacting sweeping change would be the easy way to go. But Simpson chose instead to peer into Marks' soul for the real answer. "Everyone in the courtroom could see his reaction: alarm, concern, and anxiety at the prospect of an injunction," Simpson wrote in his opinion. "His demeanor tells the story."
His demeanor? If only Simpson had managed to extend such empathy to the plaintiffs.
And yet this ruling is not particularly surprising. Getting an injunction against a law that hasn't taken effect is extraordinarily difficult. Plaintiffs seeking relief in such cases have the burden to prove, as Simpson put it, that the legislation "clearly, patently, and plainly violates the constitution of the commonwealth. On top of that, well-established law requires plaintiffs in such cases to show that the statute is unconstitutional in all of its applications" (my italics).
That's a high legal bar to clear and there's no compelling reason to think the state Supreme Court will decide that Simpson was wrong on the legal merits.
So what now?
Apart from the appeals, two options are left for voter ID opponents: a stepped-up campaign to get voters into PennDot licensing centers, and civil disobedience.
A number of low-level election officials have said they would not enforce the voter ID law. And it's certainly hard to imagine legions of community poll workers demanding to see the papers of neighbors they've known for decades and tossing them out if they're unable to show valid ID. But there probably will be less opportunity to flout the new law than many think.
State election law gives the big political parties the right to send two poll watchers to every voting station.
If Pennsylvania looks remotely competitive in the presidential election, you can probably depend on the Republican Party making sure its representatives keep a close eye on precincts in heavily Democratic African American and Latino districts, where voter ID problems are more likely to be common. And you can bet the GOP poll watchers will have the Attorney General's Office on speed dial.
"If Pennsylvania is in play, this is going to be a very emotionally charged election in Philadelphia," predicted Democratic City Commissioner Stephanie Singer, one of three elected officials who oversee voting in the city.
But at least Jonathan Marks won't be inconvenienced.

And here are the "Key Points" coming out of the 68-page ruling that upheld the law:

13 key points on PA Court ruling upholding Voter ID law

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson this morning refused to issue a preliminary injunction to block the state's new Voter ID law, which will require voters to show state-approved identification at polling places during the Nov. 6 general election.
Here are 13 key take-aways from the 68-page Simpson ruling:

1. Simpson describes the requirement to show state-approved identification to vote as a “minor change” to the state Election Code.
2. He said any voter rejected for lack of an ID can still cast a provision ballot and then produce an approved ID within six days to have their vote counted.
3. “Importantly,” Simpson said, the Voter ID law, “contains no references to any class or group. Rather, its provisions are neutral and nondiscriminatory and apply uniformly to all voters.”
4. Simpson rejected a claim that voters could be harmed by being “erroneously charged a fee for a photo ID for voting.” They can get a refund later, he explained.
5. Gov. Corbett and the Department of State initially said about 1 percent of voters did not have an approved state ID. The Department of State later said that number was closer to 9 percent. Simpson guesses the number is “somewhat more than 1 percent and significantly less than 9 percent,” Based on testimony of the Department of State’s director of policy. Simpson also said he rejected “attempts to inflate the numbers in various ways.”
6. Simpson compared objections to the Voter ID law to a legal action taken in 2008 by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, which sought to curtail the voter registration efforts of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN. Simpson ruled in October 2008 that the Republican Party would not be able to prove that ACORN was engaged in voter fraud.
7. Simpson, in the ACORN comparison, said he is convinced the Voter ID law “will be implemented by Commonwealth agencies in a non-partisan, even-handed manner.”
8. Simpson said a Department of State plan for a special identification for voting, still being developed, will prevent voters from being disenfranchised.
9. Simpson took into account the “alarm, concern and anxiety” shown by the state’s commissioner of the Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation of the impact a preliminary injunction on the Voter ID law would have on preparing for the Nov. 6 general election. “His demeanor tells the story,” Simpson wrote.
10. Simpson cites an April 2008 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, rejecting a constitutional challenge to a Voter ID law in Indiana.
11. In citing that case, Simpson notes that Department of State here acknowledged having no proof of in-person voter fraud occurring in Pennsylvania. “Nevertheless…The United States Supreme Court upheld a nearly identical Indiana voter ID law despite the absence of any evidence of in-person voter fraud occurring in that state.”
12. Simpson denounced “disturbing, tendentious statements by House Majority Leader Michael Turzai to a Republican Party gathering” – In June Turzai said the law would help former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney defeat President Obama in the presidential election – but declared that a legislator’s partisan interest in voting for a law does not make that law discriminatory. “Factually, I decline to infer that other members of the General Assembly shared the boastful views of Rep. Turzai without proof that other members were present at the time the statements were made,” Simpson wrote.
13. Simpson wrote that the Voter ID law challengers “did an excellent job of ‘putting a face” to those burdened by the law but that he does not have the “luxury of deciding the issue based on my sympathy for the witnesses.”

I would only point out here to the good judge Simpson that it's not at all about "sympathy for the witnesses" but rather about the integrity of the right to participate in our Democracy. Without any doubt, this decision will not just impede, but absolutely eliminate the participation in our Democracy of the voices who are most desperate to be heard, and who all too often are left voiceless, penniless, homeless, jobless, and now, voteless....