Auditor General Eugene DePasquale thinks the Department of State is out of line to spend $1 million this year on its Voter ID ads.
The campaign instructs voters to show photo identification at the polls in November, despite a Commonwealth Court injunction on the requirement. Voters are not required to present photo ID.
“Wasting $1 million to promote a law that is not even in effect is like putting $1 million on my 2-4 Steelers to win this year’s Super Bowl,” said DePasquale, a Pittsburgh native. “Instead of spending $1 million on a voter education problem that doesn’t exist, we should invest in making it easier for eligible voters to cast their ballot.”
State Senate Democrats have also taken issue with the campaign, and wrote a letter to Governor Corbett last week urging him to take action. The Senators argue that the advertisements are intentionally confusing and costly.
“A more prudent use of precious taxpayer funds would have been to inform voters of how they can obtain an ID, without mentioning any identification requirements,” said State Senator Matt Smith (D-Allegheny). “With immediate fiscal needs like Pennsylvania’s transportation crisis, I’m extremely disappointed and troubled by the Department of State’s actions.”
The Corbett administration has defended the campaign, claiming the advertisements are a precautionary measure in case the law goes through in time.
“We think this is important information that voters should have,” State Dep’t spokesman Ron Ruman told the Patriot News, “in the event the law should be upheld.”
Although it may be upheld in the future, Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley explicitly barred enforcement of the law in this election cycle. McGinley did say poll officials can distribute written material on the law.
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12 Responses
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A note to Blurred Conservative: Your comment is indeed blurred. The issue is not whether you or any of us approve or disapprove of the law. The issue is whether state government should spend a significant amount of scarce resources trumpeting a law that a court has determined will not be enforced this year, and whether such a campaign may confuse some voters.
Just my humble opinion…. I feel the Voter ID Law shows prejudice to minorities including the poor and elderly.
Spending $1 million to promote a law that’s not being inforced seems ironically perfect, since the law claims to address a problem that doesn’t exist.
What about all those meaningless HHS ads promoting healthcare.gov? That has been delayed as well. I want to see Ds pounding the table demanding an end to that wasteful spending.
Kudos to the Auditor General and keep up the good work. Corbett needs to wake up or ship out!
I still can’t see the issue with showing an I.D. This whole issue of people being upset is stupid. If they needed an I.D. for their Government handouts they would run and get it right away.
Depasquale and the Democrats have no problem using over $1.5 billion of our tax dollars for services provided to illegal aliens in PA.
Wonder if this has any connection for reasons he is so adamant about obstructing voter ID in this state.
Great job. Keep exposing the waste from the Corbett good old boys group. Think of the good pa could have done with a million dollars.
Corbett must go. Jail would be a fine place for him.
Pennsylvania has not had a better core of state elected officials. (With the exception of our worthless governor) I dont think many people realize the implications of this. Pennsylvania has not played a major role in national politics. (Also with the exception of Rick Santorums presidential run which I think could be judged in a couple diffrent ways on how one looked at his implications he had on that race) The Autitor Generals office, State Treasures office and the Attorney Generals office. Any of these officials could play on a national stage in their futures. And at anytime run for the Governors office and most likely serious contenders for that office or even be a top ranking senator or representative. It would be nice to see Pennsylvania play a major role in national politics like California, Texas, New York, ect. Hopefully the Pennsylvania Democratic Party can keep a deep bench of canidates in the future.
General DePascuale is simply the best elected official in PA. For many reasons…
Auditor Depasquale is right on target with his statements.we have bigger fish to fry in pa.corbett continues to waste taxpayers money thank goodness we only have him for 1 more year cmon 2014