Pa. lawmaker wants repeal of new voter ID law - abc27 WHTM

A Pennsylvania legislator said he plans to introduce a bill that would repeal Pennsylvania's new voter ID law.

State Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery/Delaware) said Thursday that new information has come to light about impact of the law and the motivations behind it since the measure was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Tom Corbett earlier this year.

"Since we cast that vote, we have received more information that would have been relevant to our deliberations and which show that the disenfranchisement the new law visits on the people of Pennsylvania was far more dramatic than we were originally led to believe, and that the motivations behind the law were not as they were represented during our previous debate," Leach said in a statement released to state lawmakers.

Original estimates from the bill's proponents were that only one percent of voters - or 80,000 voters - do not have proper identification.

Leach said the Department of State later reported that 9.2 percent of Pennsylvanians would be disenfranchised by voter ID, and the Department of Transportation recently reported that nine percent of registered voters do not have a PennDOT-issued photo ID.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which has filed a lawsuit challenging the measure, says its own statewide poll put the number around 12 percent - or about one million Pennsylvanians.

Voter ID was also sold as a bill to reduce voter fraud, but opponents have suggested there were political motives behind its passage.

Leach said that in order to address voter fraud, his bill would double - to 10 years in prison - the current penalties for committing voter impersonation. The measure is currently circulating for co-sponsors.