GOP presses for passage of voter ID bill in Pa.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans pressed against Democratic opposition for passage of a bill today in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives to require voters to show photo identification before their votes could be counted, beginning with this year’s presidential election.

Debate began before noon, and was expected to last for several hours. The Republican-controlled Senate approved the bill last week, and House approval would send the bill to Gov. Tom Corbett, also a Republican, who plans to sign it.

The bill, which would give Pennsylvania one of the nation’s toughest voter ID laws, is touted by Republicans as a way to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats responded that Republicans have no evidence that voter fraud is a far-reaching problem that could be stopped by a photo ID requirement.

It may generate a court challenge by the ACLU or Senate Democrats, while other groups that oppose the bill, such as AARP and the Philadelphia-based Committee of Seventy, plan to mount public information campaigns to help voters understand the changes.