Marc Levy/Associated PressPennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai at the Capitol in Harrisburg in 2011.A top Pennsylvania Republican’s remark this weekend that the state’s new voter ID law would help Mitt Romney win the state has reignited a debate over whether the law is intended to curb fraud, as Republicans say, or to depress Democratic turnout, as Democrats charge.
The remark was made by Mike Turzai, the state’s House majority leader, when he spoke over the weekend to a meeting of the Republican State Committee and ticked off a number of recent conservative achievements by Pennsylvania’s Republican-led legislature.
“Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done,” he said, according to a report on PoliticsPA.com, a Web site that covers political news.
When Pennsylvania passed a law this year requiring voters to show photo identification before casting ballots, Democrats warned that it would make it harder for many of their supporters — including young voters, and members of minorities — to cast ballots. A number of the state’s colleges, for instance, will have to change the identification cards they issue so students will be able to use them to vote.
A spokesman for Mr. Turzai, Stephen Miskin, said that the remarks, which were made Saturday in Hershey, Pa., were simply meant to underscore that combating voter fraud was important and that doing so would level the playing field in the next election.
He declined to say if he thought that fraud had played a role in past presidential elections in Pennsylvania.
