Over a year ago the Republicans who control the state legislature and the governor’s office in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania decided that we needed to spend millions of dollars and disenfranchise many voters in order to fight the virtually nonexistent crime of voter impersonation.

I specify Republicans because the law did not attract a single Democratic vote. And I think it is not just coincidence that this is likely to disenfranchise many more Democratic voters than Republicans.

Unfortunately for the Republicans and the taxpayers of Pennsylvania, this attempt ended up in court, has not yet been enforced, and is now costing even more.

When I wrote about this last year, The Philadephia Inquirer had a good series of articles on the issues but the link I had in my post then is bad. I don’t know why they reorganized the website but I cannot find anything comparable. Fortunately philly.com has posted a good article from the PA Independent on the VoterID issue.

I have no problem with showing ID at the polls. The problem I see is the state limiting what is acceptable as ID and choosing to make obtaining that ID especially difficult.

For those interested in reading more, here are a few recent articles:

• http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130716_Trial_on_Pa__voter-ID_law_gets_underway.html
• http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20130731_Karen_Heller__State_defending_an_indefensible_law.html
• http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/politics-state/pennsylvanias-voter-id-debate-has-come-a-long-way-697193/