Determined to counter the Republicans’ voter photo ID law, Democrats in Pennsylvania have decided to issue identification cards through nursing homes and universities to residents threatened with being turned away at the polls in November.

Under a controversial state law adopted by Republican lawmakers and Governor Tom Corbett, voters must present a valid photo ID in order to cast their votes this year. Democrats objected to the legislation, claiming it would disenfranchise the poor and minorities, who tend to vote for the Democratic Party.

So Democratic leaders in some counties, including Montgomery and Allegheny, decided to authorize the issuance of poll-ready identification cards through county-run nursing homes and colleges.

The move is legal because the voter ID law contains a provision allowing higher education institutions and senior-care centers to provide such cards to anyone who lives in the county, and not just to the people who attend those colleges or reside in those centers, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Democrats say too many residents were having trouble getting photo ID cards from the state Department of Transportation, forcing them to try alternative ways of ensuring voters are not turned away in November.

Republicans leaders publicly said they had no problem with the Democrats’ plan. In July Pennsylvania Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Cawley admitted under oath that the state was unaware of any case of in-person voter fraud having ever been committed in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania’s Republican House Majority Leader Mike Turzai said that the voter ID law would help deliver the state for Mitt Romney in November.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Other Counties May Join In Using Pennsylvania Voter-ID Law Loophole (by Jeremy Roebuck, Angela Couloumbis and Jessica Parks, Philadelphia Inquirer)

Pennsylvania Government Refuses to Turn Over Photo ID Documents to Justice Dept. (by Matt Bewig, AllGov)