Jotaka Eaddy, Director of the NAACP Voting Rights Initiative
The NAACP released the following statement in response to Pennsylvania Governor Corbett’s decision not to appeal the recent court ruling striking down the states strict photo voter ID law.
The court concluded that the law placed and unreasonable burden on the right to vote.
“We are pleased that Gov. Corbett has decided not to continue the State’s pursuit to institute a photo ID law that has been proven to discriminate against hundreds of thousands of voters,” said Jotaka Eaddy, Director of the NAACP Voting Rights Initiative. “Today marks a significant victory for Pennsylvania’s voters and our Democracy.”
In 2012, the Pennsylvania NAACP joined a lawsuit against the state to block the strict voter ID law. The law, passed by the Pennsylvania legislature and signed by the governor this year, requires voters to present government approved photo ID in order to vote.
Reports show that hundreds of thousands of registered and eligible Pennsylvanian voters do not have an acceptable ID. Proponents of the law indicated that the law is intended to prevent voter fraud, but acknowledged that the voter fraud prevented by the new requirement has not occurred in the state in recent history and is unlikely to occur even without the ID requirement.
Since 2000, only 10 cases of in-person voter fraud have been proven nationally.
