Pennsylvania Judge Strikes Down State’s Voter ID Law

Commonwealth Judge Bernard McGinley has ruled there is no need for a voter ID law in Pennsylvania!

Democrats have been grinding their teeth ever since Pennsylvania State House Majority Leader Mike Turzai announced the new Voter ID Law passed by the legislature was “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” Lawyers presented his statement in court as evidence the state’s newfound interest in voter fraud was just voter suppression in disguise.

To Leader Turzai’s eternal disappointment, the state’s supreme court kept the law from taking effect in time for the 2012 election. The justices sent the case back to the Commonwealth Court to investigate how the new ID requirements would impact legal voters, with instructions that the lower court must suspend the law if “liberal access to voter ID is nor ensured.”

Think Progress reports the Commonwealth Court has ruled. Judge Bernard McGinley struck down the law, issuing a permanent injunction against the voter ID requirement, writing:

“In Pennsylvania, the right of qualified electors to vote is a fundamental one. Therefore, Pennsylvania precedent does not permit regulation of the right to vote when such regulation denies the franchise, or ‘make[s] it so difficult as to amount to a denial.’”

Judge McGinley also dismissed the state’s claim they were concerned about voter fraud, saying he found such instances to be “exceedingly rare”.

The case will no doubt be appealed, once again, to the state supreme court.