PENNSYLVANIA: Judge Upholds GOP Plan To Suppress Minority Voting

A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that he will not issue an injunction against the Republican law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls.

The Republican-penned law — which passed over the objections of Democrats — has ignited a furious debate over voting rights as Pennsylvania is poised to play a key role in deciding the presidential contest. Plaintiffs, including a 93-year-old woman who recalled marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960, had asked Simpson to block the law from taking effect in this year's election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality. Republicans defend the law as necessary to protect the integrity of the election. But Democrats say the law will make it harder for people who lack ID for valid reasons to vote. Opponents portray the law as a partisan scheme to help the Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, beat Obama. Their passionate objections were inflamed in June when the state's Republican House leader boasted to a Republican gathering that the new photo ID requirement "is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state" in November.

The judge, you may be shocked to learn, is a Republican. Numerous studies conducted nationwide have confirmed that the so-called "epidemic" of voter fraud is essentially nonexistent.