Election+Division+head+says+he+won’t+denounce+Voter+ID+law

=By Patrick Cloonan= =Published by the McKeesport Daily News= =8/9/12= = =

=The manager of Allegheny County’s Elections Division said Wednesday he cannot denounce the state Voter ID law, as he was urged to do in a petition a White Oak resident posted online.=

=“Whatever the current provisions of the election code are, we are bound by law to follow them,” said Mark Wolosik.=

=Steven Singer, an eighth-grade teacher in the Steel Valley School District, created his petition on a site related to the activist group MoveOn.org.=

=“Why would anyone enforce this outrageous new law that could prevent up to 758,000 registered Pennsylvanians from voting?” asked the petition posted at SignOn.org .=

=That petition has 2,000 signatures, said a release from FitzGibbon Media, a Washington, D.C., public relations firm working with “cutting-edge progressive” advocates.=

=“As a middle school teacher in a district with a large segment of minority and poor residents, many of my students’ parents will be directly affected,” Singer said in that release.=

=“My 88-year-old mother can’t find her birth certificate and has no dated photo ID,” a Pittsburgh signer lamented, according to FitzGibbon Media.=

=Wolosik said the law also known as Act 18 of 2012 still is in litigation.=

=“None of us know what the Commonwealth Court is going to do,” Wolosik said. “It likely will be appealed to the state Supreme Court. Until we are told otherwise by a court or the legislature, the law that is in effect now we have to follow.”=

=State Sen. Kim L. Ward, R-Hempfield Township, said she wanted to focus on voter IDs at an annual senior expo she will hold this fall and contacted senior centers.=

=“We couldn’t find people that needed our help,” Ward said after a Norwin Chamber of Commerce luncheon.= =There Ward legislative aide Kelly Fennessy described a legal ID as “anything that has your photo and an expiration date.”=

=Fennessy said the senator’s offices in Greensburg and North Huntingdon Township can help constituents get voter IDs free of charge.=

=Singer co-founded TEACH, or Tell Everyone All Cuts Hurt, in response to state education budget cuts in the past two years.= = = = = =News= =home=