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 during a six-day hearing earlier this summer to block the law from taking effect in this year’s election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality.

Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson said he would not grant an injunction that would have halted the law, which requires each voter to show a valid photo ID. Opponents are expected to quickly file an appeal to the state Supreme Court as the Nov. 6 election looms.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A tough new voter identification law championed by Republicans can take effect in Pennsylvania for November’s presidential election, a judge ruled Wednesday, despite a torrent of criticism that it will make it harder for the elderly, disabled, poor, and young adults to vote.

Republicans, who defend the law as necessary to protect the integrity of the election, praised Simpson’s decision, while it was decried by Democrats who say the law will make it harder, if not impossible, for hundreds of thousands of people who lack an ID for valid reasons to vote.


Opponents portray the law as a partisan scheme to help the Republican challenger, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, beat President Obama. Their passionate objections were inflamed in June when the state’s Republican House leader boasted to a party gathering that the new photo ID requirement “is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state.”

Simpson, a Republican, did not rule on the full merits of the case, only on whether to grant a preliminary injunction stopping it from taking effect. He rejected claims that the law is unconstitutional and ruled that the challenge did not meet the stiff requirements to win an injunction.


“The statute simply gives poll workers another tool to verify that the person voting is who they claim to be,” he said.

But lawyers for those who sued questioned Simpson’s choice to give strong deference to the government. A key element of their appeal will likely revolve around Simpson’s decision not to put a heavier legal burden on the government to justify a law that, they say, infringes on a constitutional right.

At the state Supreme Court, votes by four justices would be needed to overturn Simpson’s ruling. The high court is currently split between three Republicans and three Democrats following the recent suspension of Justice Joan Orie Melvin, a Republican who is fighting criminal corruption charges.

In his 70-page opinion, Simpson said the plaintiffs “did an excellent job of ‘putting a face’ to those burdened by the voter ID requirement,” but he said he did not have the luxury of deciding the case based on sympathy. Rather, he said he believed that state officials and agencies were actively resolving problems with getting photo IDs and that they would carry out the law in a “nonpartisan, even-handed manner.”

Because of those efforts, “the inconvenience of going to PennDOT [the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation], gathering required documents, and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on the vast supermajority of registered voters,” he wrote.