More than 750,000 Pennsylvania voters could be disenfranchised in November

Remember this guy?

Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R): "[...] Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."

They've done their damnedest. Pennsylvania's new voter ID law could mean as many as one in 10 voters could be barred from voting this year, the state's Department of State and Department of Transportation have determined. The secretary of state is actually touting this, saying it 'confirms that most Pennsylvanians have acceptable photo ID for voting this November.'

"Most" is not good enough, and not every official in the state is so sanguine about those numbers.

'What's truly scary about this report is that it makes my case,' Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner said. 'About 10 percent of otherwise eligible Pennsylvanians are disenfranchised by the Voter ID law. That's not an acceptable number of people to tell that they can't vote.' Disenfranchised groups, Wagner said, include older residents, students and the poor. [...]

'It also hands Pennsylvania counties a bill estimated at $11 million to implement at a time when counties are strapped financially,' Wagner said.

County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said the role of government should be to make it easier to vote and encourage participation, something the new law does not do.

'If this isn't rescinded by the election, it's going to be absolute turmoil on Election Day,' he said.

The ACLU is suing on behalf of many of those disenfranchised voters, including the remarkable Viviette Applewhite, the 93-year-old Philadelphia grandmother. The Allegheny County Democrats have also indicated that they will sue. But as of now, the voter ID law is in place, and the votes of over three quarters of a million people could be at stake.