Some officials question clarity of new Pa. voter ID requirements

Some county elections officers are struggling to make sense of the finer points of Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law signed earlier this month.

A spokesman for the Philadelphia City Commissioners says the office wants to be sure expiration dates are absolutely necessary for IDs given out by colleges, universities, and places such as nursing homes.

“It says, ‘photo ID cards from an accredited public or private Pennsylvania college or university, not expired.’ So it saying ‘not expired’ is not the same as saying it has to have an expiration date,” said Noam Kugelmass.

He says the instructions that counties received from the Department of State leave room for confusion.

But Ron Ruman, the agency’s spokesman, says the law is specific about what constitutes acceptable identification at the polls.

“They must have an expiration date. So that it, that is what the law says, so that is of course how we will implement it to follow the law, that there must be an expiration date on that student ID for it to be acceptable,” he said.

Some IDs issued by universities show no expiration date, but they do show an issue date.

That’s the case at Penn State. And Ruman says those IDs would not be allowed.