Survey: 96.5 percent of Philly voters in 2012 would've had voter ID if law was in effect
An unscientific exit poll of Philadelphia voters in the Nov. 6 general election found that 96.5 percent said they would have had the proper identification to meet the state's voter-ID law, which was delayed through a court injunction.
Survey: 96.5 percent of Philly voters in 2012 would've had voter ID if law was in effect
Sean Collins Walsh
An unscientific exit poll of Philadelphia voters in the Nov. 6 general election found that 96.5 percent said they would have had the proper identification to meet the state’s voter-ID law, which was delayed through a court injunction.
The poll of about 4,800 voters, conducted by the nonpartisan Committee of Seventy, had many methodological limitations and should not be considered an authoritative look at the election, said Zack Stalberg, the committee’s president.
Still, “it seems that most of those people who came to the polls on Election Day were prepared to show voter ID, so that would make one side of the argument happy,” said Stalberg, referring to supporters of the GOP-backed law.
Another key finding was that the court-ordered “soft roll-out” of the voter-ID law, in which poll workers were supposed to ask for ID but allow those who didn’t have it to vote anyway, essentially did not happen, according to the survey. Only about 9 percent of respondents said they were asked to show photo ID.
Limitations on the survey include that it was not weighted proportionally to fit the city’s demographic or geographic makeup.
It also could not take into account how many people without ID chose not to go to register or vote because they thought the voter-ID law would prevent them from doing so.
Additionally, surveyors did not verify whether the voters actually had proper ID, meaning some respondents might have said they had the right kind of ID when in fact they did not.
What this tells us is that 17,000 registered voters would have been disenfranchised for no good reason. Democracy dodged a bullet.— Thad Lawrence- No, it could also mean that those voters did not have the proper ID because they were not eligible to vote, or were not eligible to have a proper ID. If they were eligible to vote, they had ample time to obtain a proper ID. And in the next election, what will their excuse be?— ObamaSolyndra
- There is no ample amount of time to alleviate voter suppression. This just Tom Corbett's modern day Jim Crow.
- How does asking someone to carry a plastic card suppress someone? We're all adults here. Folks have been given a very generous amount of time to get their acts together. Grow up. — Zero
- Tell me something else you DO NOT have to show your ID for?
You can't- why? because you neeed a VALID ID for everything!!!!!
— Manny Trillo - You shouldn't need an ID to exercise your RIGHT to vote. The form of voter fraud this law combats just doesn't exist. Even of it did, one person claiming to be someone else and then perfectly forging that person's signature is hardly the way to rig an election. You would need to pretend to be thousands of people to have any effect on the outcome of the election. Turn off the noise and think this one through. A little common sense goes a long way.
- Yet you need an ID to exercise another RIGHT- purchasing a firearm, Kilgore. But I guess that is a different kind of right and isn't as important. Right?
— kjuggs77 - "You shouldn't need an ID to exercise your RIGHT to vote."
Alas, how do we know one has a RIGHT to vote if one's citizenship cannot be proven? The right is theirs, but shouldn't it be his fellow citizen's right to protect his own vote from being overshadowed illegally?
You can go on and on about how there's no 'proof', but the simple fact is that the measure is precautionary, just like every other law.— Zero - We'll see how long it will take to process your ID next year. If this ID law generates lines in D leaning areas and people leave because the can't or don't want to wait then this counts as voter suppression in my book.— meteo30
- Or another avenue for excuses. — Zero
- @Kilgore- Show me where the RIGHT to vote is explicitly conferred. You won't find it. The Constitution only outlines the basis on which you cannot be denied voting privileges.
Just something else that has become the truth becasue it has been repeated so frequently....
— Wiseman6 - Saying you would've had one, and actually producing one are two different things. 96.5% of city voters do not possess a valid ID. Next they'll be telling you that 100% of 13 districts did not cast a single vote for Romney. Wait...— kjuggs77
- I have to show an ID to get cold medicine because the dopes heads are using it to make meth. We use an ID to get a book from the library, how dare you have to show one to vote, so as to ensure voter integrity. Why its Jim Crow, yeah OK. This country is gone to hell in a handbag.— 72Tiger
- An unscientific exit poll? I'm convinced -- let's disenfranchise 3.5% of the voters so that we can solve the non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud!— DiTurno
- With 96% not being affected, this would not have changed the drubbing Romney got in Pennsylvania. Nothing would have changed to alter the results in Phila, Pennsylvania or America. Romney and the republican ideas to crush the will of the American people and disenfranchise citizens still would have been soundly rejected.— Dexter
Follow Chris on Twitter
David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
Follow Dave on Twitter.
Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
Follow Jan on Twitter
Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
Follow Sean on Twitter
