Let me finish with the real-life consequence of this bad voter photo law in Pennsylvania.
My high school English teacher, Gerald Tremblay, has been caring for his wife these recent years. She suffered a serious stroke and has been unable to get out and about. She can no longer drive a car and therefore has no driver's license. Unable to travel, she has no up-to-date passport.
But she is fully alert and very much alive intellectually. Thanks to her husband, she keeps up with the news. He holds the newspapers up for her to read, and she's very eager to vote this year.
Therein lies the problem, this "new" problem. The new Pennsylvania law, pushed through by Republicans in the legislature, requires that to get an absentee ballot which is needed in this case, you need to produce a government-issued photo ID.
Think about the obstacles this presents here. Mr. Tremblay would have to take his wife to the PennDot headquarters—his wife being a serious stroke victim—simply to get the ID card that the new law now requires.
Now we have no idea if this is the kind of person the GOP lawmakers in Harrisburg were out to keep from voting. What we do know is the predicament they've created for her, a consequence of their slick move to, in the words of the top Republican in the Pennsylvania legislature, deliver the commonwealth's electoral votes to Romney.
I would think this case is a good example of why justice requires action by the courts to stop this unfair new law from taking effect barely a month from now.
What I didn't say is that Gerald Tremblay is the greatest teacher I ever had, anyone ever had. If he's as good a caregiver as he was a teacher, God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.
But this law needs to be changed now so that his wife can cast her ballot like every other registered Pennsylvania voter.