This week in the War on Voting: Pennsylvania officials seek to delay voter-ID appeal

Let's start off with some good news in the War on Voting for a change, shall we?

California is poised to become the ninth and largest state in the Union to allow citizens to register to vote on election day. Both the state senate and assembly have passed election day registration (EDR) and, after different wordings between the two houses are worked out, it is certain Gov. Jerry Brown will sign the bill into law. It won't, however, take effect until 2016.

The current law cuts would-be voters off from registering two weeks before an election. Studies show that EDR "boosts voter turnout by seven percentage points," reports Scott Keyes at ThinkProgress. In California, that could mean another 700,000 voters.

Eight other states already have election day registration: Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

• Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is unhappy with U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder's investigation of the state's restrictive voter-ID law, calling it "unprecedented":

  In a letter to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Pennsylvania General Counsel James Schultz wrote that while the state had provided the Justice Department with tens of thousands of documents, the fishing expedition by Justice was going too far. "In light of the absence of authority for your request for information, I question whether your inquiry is truly motivated by a desire to assess compliance with federal voting rights laws, or rather is fueled by political motivation," he wrote.

  Kathleen Kane, the Democratic candidate for attorney general in Pennsylvania said it's not Holder but rather Corbett who is "playing" politics over the matter.

  Holder has said that restrictive voter-ID laws like the Keystone state's are akin to a modern-day "poll tax," which was one of the many ways the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow South kept African Americans away from the ballot box for eight decades.

  Unlike in 16 other states or parts of other states, changes in the voting laws in Pennsylvania do not require federal oversight under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Critics say the photo voter-ID law will make it harder for minorities, the youngest and oldest voters to cast ballots because they are the least likely to have the government-issued ID that the state now requires. Officials concede they are not set up to deal with the potential deluge of Pennsyvlanians who might seek an ID between now and election day.

  A state judge has nevertheless rejected a challenge to the law brought by the Pennsylvania ACLU and others. Officials are now seeking to delay until mid-October an appeal of the case to the state supreme court. How transparent can you get?
  

  'That's way too late,' says Vic Walczak, Legal Director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

  He says a mid-October date would leave less than three weeks before the election.

  'That would make it difficult, if not impossible for county elections boards to adjust their procedures, if that's necessary,' he says. 'That would also mean there is no certainty for voters, until that time. And people won't know whether they need to go to that extra mile to get the ID.'

  Supporters of the ID law said they have been vindicated by the fact that the lead plaintiff in the case, 93-year-old Viviette Applewhite, obtained a voter ID the day after the judge ruled against her lawyer's claims that the law will have a discriminatory impact. But foes of the law say the fact that one woman can get an ID after becoming a celebrity is scarcely proof that other citizens will also find the law isn't onerous.

(Continue reading below the fold.)