THE VOTER ID LAW IS A CONSERVATIVE HYPOCRACY

The Pennsylvania voter’s ID controversy is getting more ironic by the day.  The conservative establishment who thought up this affront to our most basic of liberties must now explain the economic burden of this unfunded new legislation.  Not only is the cost born by county taxpayers, it is significant.

An action filed in Allegheny County, not by representatives of the elderly, poor, or minorities, was brought by the fiscal watchdog, the County Controller. It turns out that the unfunded mandate for the state’s new voter ID law will cost Pennsylvania’s local governments about $11 million to implement. New procedures must be drawn up, poll workers must be trained, and those impossible to comprehend provisional ballots brought out of the dusty closets.

Only the most jaded of conservatives could justify this additional financial burden on the counties, when education and social services are being slashed to the bone.  No sane elected official can possibly believe that protecting our citizens from phantom voter fraud is more pressing than education, mental health or the environment.  I am waiting to see how the Corbett gang and its followers will philosophically explain deregulating our air, water, and ground resources to save money on the one hand while regulating our poorest citizen’s right to vote and mandating local government to spend tax payer dollars on the other.