Enforcement of the most significant part of the new law — a requirement that voters show photo ID at the polls — will not be in effect for the primary under an agreement struck last week between the state and the plaintiffs who sued.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson, who ordered that the provision not be enforced in the presidential election last fall after a battle that reached the state Supreme Court, approved the latest agreement Tuesday.
Voters will be permitted to cast ballots in the primary even if they don’t have a valid photo ID, although a provision of the law that is not affected by the litigation requires poll workers to ask them for it anyway.
“We don’t have an option of not asking,” said Jeffrey Greenburg, Mercer County’s elections chief and chairman of the Western Pennsylvania Election Personnel Association, which represents counties in the western half of the state.
Read more.