Voter buddy system suggested for help obtaining IDs

Philadelphia's top election official suggested Monday that city voters should set up a buddy system to help others get the photo identification they'll need at the polls in November.

Every Philadelphian should "adopt" two eligible voters without photo IDs, help them obtain the necessary identification, then make sure they go to the polls, City Commissioners chairwoman Stephanie Singer told a small gathering in the City Hall courtyard.

"If we want our democracy, we need to fight for it," said Singer, a Democrat and one of three commissioners overseeing the Board of Elections.

She continued to criticize the state's new voter-ID law as an effort at "vote suppression and disenfranchisement." But with last week's Commonwealth Court decision upholding the law, she said, voters and public officials should refocus on helping people get whatever ID they need to vote.

The new law, pushed through the legislature in March by Republicans and Gov. Corbett, requires voters to provide either a Pennsylvania driver's license or another specified form of photo ID.

Options include a nondriver ID, also issued by PennDot; a current U.S. passport; a government-employee identification issued by the federal, state, or local government; current military ID; college student ID with an expiration date; or photo ID from a licensed care facility, also with an expiration date.

Voters who show up at the polls without the necessary photo ID will be able to cast provisional ballots to be set aside until after the election. Those voters will have six days to prove their identities to county election officials if they want their provisional votes to be counted.

People who will be out of town on Election Day or unable to go to their assigned polling places because of illness or inaccessibility will be allowed to use absentee or alternative ballots. Those voters must fill out absentee-ballot applications, receive their blank ballots in the mail, fill them out, and return them before the election.

Singer said she has approached several university professors about conducting polls to determine which neighborhoods are most in need of information about the voter-ID requirements, and how to reach them.

Last month, state election officials put out county-by-county lists totaling 758,000 voters ostensibly lacking driver's licenses or other PennDot ID. But the lists contained so many false negatives - people who actually have PennDot ID - that they have limited value for groups trying to target voters who need help.