Voter ID Laws Expose GOP Vote Fraud Scheme

By Linn Washington

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, the same conservative Republican who recently cut 70,000 from receiving their meager welfare payments in order to cut government costs, is ready to spend millions of bucks to implement a voter suppression scheme that evidence indicates is a blatant partisan measure designed to help Mitt Romney gain a presidential election victory.

Earlier this year Corbett and his confederates in Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature approved one of the nation’s most restrictive photo Voter ID measures to squash what they claimed was frequent voter fraud particularly in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia – the state’s largest city.

However, Corbett Administration officials now admit that the fraud their Voter ID measure seeks to corral – persons falsely impersonating someone else on Election Day – is virtually non-existent in the state.

Corbett Administration officials, during a state court hearing on a lawsuit to block implementation of this Voter ID law, acknowledged they had uncovered no evidence of past impersonation fraud and found no evidence that it will occur in the 2012 presidential election.

In fact during the eight years Corbett served as Pennsylvania’s attorney general before his election to governor in 2010 he never prosecuted a single voter fraud case.

“When we argued against this measure earlier this year we said this was a solution seeking a problem because there was no such ID fraud in the state,” Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes (D-Phila) said. All Democrats in the stata legislature voted against the ID measure.

“We knew the only purpose of the bill was to impact the November election,” Hughes said. “There is no question this is purely about partisan politics.”

Persuasive confirmation of voter suppression charges from Hughes and others came in late June when the Republican House Majority Leader proudly announced during a Republican Party meeting that the true intent of Voter ID was helping Romney win Pennsylvania.

House Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny), when listing 2012 GOP legislative accomplishments said, “Voter ID which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win Pennsylvania – Done!”

During the 2008 presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama won Pennsylvania by 600,000 votes.

Corbett Administration officials, during that week-long court hearing, testified that 759,000 Pennsylvania residents do not have the kind of state-issued ID (a driver’s license or DMV issued ID) the new law demands for voting, rendering those otherwise eligible voters suddenly ineligible to vote. Many, if they are not paying attention, won't even know this until they step up to the table at a voting place to sign in and cast a ballot...

For the rest of this article by LINN WASHINGTON, JR. inThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to:www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1268