Politics
Election 2012: Election official in Pennsylvania will not enforce voter suppression law
African American voters in Maryland. PHOTO/Rich Vary/NewsHour
An election official in Pennsylvania has said that he will not enforce the state’s voter I.D. law.
Christopher Broach, a Democrat from Colwyn, Pennsylvania told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he would continue to honor the state’s old voting rules.
Supporters of the law, whose fate will be decided in a closely watched state court case, say that is necessary to prevent voter fraud. But the state’s attorneys recently stipulated that there was no evidence of in-person voter fraud in the area, and the state had never prosecuted anyone for in-person voter fraud.
Critics of the law, passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature, say that it will disenfranchise groups that are more likely not to have official state identification, like college students, African Americans and Latinos — groups that are inclined to vote for Democrats. More than half of Colwyn’s population is African American.