By Barbara Goldberg
Sept 18 (Reuters) - The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered a
lower court on Tuesday to reconsider its decision upholding a new state voter ID law, saying it should be blocked if voters
would be shut out this Election Day by hurdles to obtaining ID
cards.
The court battle over the law passed last March by the
Republican-led legislature in Pennsylvania, considered a key
swing state in the upcoming presidential election, is being
watched closely on both local and national levels.
The Supreme Court's ruling sends the issue back to
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson, who must reconsider his
earlier decision to allow the law to go forward. He is due to
rule by Oct 2.
Supporters of the voter ID law say it is aimed at ensuring
that only those legally eligible to vote cast ballots. Critics
say it is designed to keep minority voters, who typically vote
Democratic, away from the polls.
The law mandates that all voters show either a state
driver's license, government employee ID or a state non-driver
ID card to vote, including in the Nov. 6 presidential election.
Similar legal battles are under way in Texas and South Carolina.
The high court said the race to supply identification to
voters in the seven weeks before Election Day has hit a number
of snags and threatens to trample citizens' constitutional right
to vote.
"We are confronted with an ambitious effort on the part of
the General Assembly to bring the new identification procedure
into effect within a relatively short timeframe and an
implementation process which has by no means been seamless in
light of the serious operational constraints faced by the
executive branch," the ruling said.
While finding that government officials are "proceeding in
good faith," the judges ordered the lower court to reassess the
process now underway for obtaining ID cards and to look for
unexpected roadblocks that threaten "liberal access" to voter
IDs mandated by the law.
If the lower court finds access is inhibited or that voters
are being disenfranchised in any other way "arising out of the
Commonwealth's implementation of a voter-identification
requirement for purposes of the upcoming election, that court is
obliged to enter a preliminary injunction," the Supreme Court
said.
The high court's 4-2 opinion places a "very, very high
burden on the Commonwealth to establish that no one is going to
be disenfranchised by this law," said Jennifer Clarke, executive
director of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia.
"It is going to be very difficult for the state to make this
showing," she said.
Pennsylvania's Department of State, which has argued there
is no evidence that the necessary ID cards could not be produced
in time, said it would continue to reach out to voters with
mailers, television advertisements and calls to educate them on
the law.
A spokesman said the department was confident "every
registered voter in Pennsylvania who needs an ID for voting will
be able to get one for the November election."
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