Recent comments

I took it upon myself to look at the websites of all 67 PA counties on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 6 and 7 - several days after the Oct. 2 court decision delaying implementation of the photo ID law until AFTER the Nov. election. (I was inspired to check ALL PA counties after Rachel Maddow reported, several days after the Oct. 2 court decision, that the PA Dept. of State and a few other counties were giving incorrect information.) These 19 counties that I discovered last weekend were STILL telling voters that they would NOT be allowed to vote in Nov. without a photo ID. I contacted these counties on Oct. 6 and 7 via email and phone and asked that they please correct their websites first thing Monday morning. I explained how they were potentially disenfranchising voters with the misinformation. On Tuesday morning, Oct. 9th, all but 5 of the counties had corrected their websites. I called election officials and/or commissioners for those 5 counties and got totally inadequate excuses for why they had not corrected the sites. Most of the people I spoke to seemed apathetic at best! I explained that, because October 9 was the last day to register, they could be disenfranchising unregistered voters because, even if those voters learned before the election that they did NOT need a photo ID, those voters without photo ID (such as seniors who had difficulty getting documents or getting to a place to get ID, etc. by Nov. 6) were STILL screwed if they had not registered, thinking that there was no point without photo ID. Even some REGISTERED PA voters may not go to the polls because of the misinformation on the websites of these counties, thinking they will not be allowed to vote if they lack a photo ID. I also contacted the PA Dept. of State on Monday, Oct. 8 but received NO response! I cannot believe that someone from another state, me in Maryland, was the one who discovered the misinformation on 19 county websites! Why didn't the PA Dept. of State tell the counties, as soon as the court decision was issued Oct. 2, to make sure their websites did not have misinformation? Why didn't the election officials in those 19 counties correct the mistake without ME asking them to do so? Shouldn't this be part of their job?! Unbelievable!! We will never know how many voters in those 19 counties will not go to the polls because the websites of their counties told them they MUST have a photo ID. I pointed out to these county officials that young man and women are dying for this country and our rights such as the right to vote and the county officials appear to have been unconcerned about their failure to do their jobs, especially the officials in those 5 counties who were perfectly satisfied if the websites were not corrected until, Wed., the day AFTER the voter registration deadline.