This week marked the opening of the trial in the ACLU of Pennsylvania’s challenge to the state’s restrictive voter ID law. The trial began with testimony from Ms. Viviette Applewhite, a feisty 93-year-old African-American great-great-grandmother who uses a wheelchair. Ms. Applewhite, who once marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., has voted in almost every election for the past 50 years and cast her first vote for president for FDR. Despite her age and limited physical mobility, Ms. Applewhite traveled two hours from Harrisburg to Philadelphia to testify as to how she may not be able to vote in this year’s presidential election because she does not have has not been able to obtain an acceptable ID under the state’s new law.
In a victory for Pennsylvania voters, a state judge today halted the enforcement of the state’s voter ID law, which threatened to disenfranchise thousands of elderly residents, students, the homeless and communities of color this November.
Judge Robert Simpson Jr. ruled that he was “not convinced” that the requirement to show photo ID at polling stations would not lead to voter disenfranchisement, as the state had argued.
