Just 38 Days to Go ...

Although our home state of Pennsylvania is one of the few that still does not permit in-person voting prior to election day, such early voting is already beginning in some of the 34 states that do and it is estimated at between 35% and 40% of all votes for President and Vice President this year will have already been cast before November 6th.

That being the case, as a reminder of when the polls finally DO open here in 38 days, I am now posting a picture of the voting booth I set up in front of my home in Ardmore on every election day as a symbol to encourage my neighbors to go to the polls and exercise their franchise to vote.

This particular booth is also an historic symbol to me as it is one of those that in November, 2000, was used in Palm Beach County, Florida and houses one of those infamous "hanging chad" punch card voting machines that resulted in the disputed General Election in that state which was not finally "decided" until a month after election day by a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court in "Bush v. Gore" that halted the recount of disputed votes. I acquired it on eBay the following year and have set it up on every election day since.

It is pretty clear from the image how I intend to vote and I personally hope that the President and Vice President will be reelected. But unlike the GOP dominated Pennsylvania legislature that imposed Act 18 (the "Voter ID Law") on the electors of the Commonwealth last March in a blatant attempt to disenfranchise as many as 10% of Pennsylvania's registered voters in order to "allow Mitt Romney to win Pennslyvania" as GOP House leader Michael Turzai (R-28) admitted publicly in May, I want EVERY eligible voter in Pennsylvania to be able cast a ballot on November 6th no matter which ticket each one votes for.

This right to vote is guaranteed by the Declaration of Rights set forth in the Pennsylvania Constitution in Article I, Section 5 which prescribes that elections must be free and equal and that “no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

Hopefully this time, Judge Robert Simpson of the Commonwealth Court will now agree to protect that right and rule correctly -- and in accordance with the overwhelming evidence adduced at the earlier trial and the rehearing last week -- by granting an injunction to the requirement to present a Sate approved photo ID to vote by the October 2nd deadline set by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Applewhite et al v. Commonwealth at al that he failed to do the first time around.

Every registered Pennsylvania elector must be allowed to exercise the most important and sacred civic right -- and duty -- that we have as citizens and not permit a partisan legislature to "interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage" in order to pervert the will of the people by the targeted suppression of the electorate.

So please let us ALL go vote on November 6th!