Nearly one in six eligible Latino voters in Pennsylvania will be prevented from voting if the state’s new voter-ID law is enacted, a civil rights group claims.
The Washington, D.C.-based Advancement Project says up to 52,000 legal voters in the Keystone State could lose their right to cast a ballot on Nov. 6.
The group’s co-director Penda Hair said staff members at PennDOT, the state’s Department of Transportation, have not been adequately trained about who should receive identification.
“You don’t have to pay $13 or have a birth certificate to get acceptable ID but many PennDOT staff don't understand this,” she said, according to the
Philadelphia Daily News.
Another Latino activist, Miguel Concepcion, chairman of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights, claimed different PennDOT offices apply different criteria when deciding on whether to issue identification cards.
A hearing is due Tuesday to decide whether the state is doing enough to get voter IDs to eligible voters. If Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson decides it is not, he could block the law before the election.
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