League Of Women Voters

It was the evening of Oct. 11, 1984, and in West Philadelphia, the TV news networks were ready to air the live vice presidential debate pitting Geraldine Ferraro against George H.W. Bush. The big question for those viewing the 90-minute event: Would Ferraro keep her steely composure, or would she stumble on this national stage? If she did, Ferraro could dash the hopes of a generation of women whose horizons broadened in the 1970s and who hoped to pursue their own political careers.

WITH THE HELP of representatives from the League of Women Voters, Fran Kaplan (left) registers to vote at the Lancaster Farmers Market in Strafford. Ellen Aman (standing) and Rita Gross were on hand for the league yesterday. The Pennsylvania primary is May 15.

Here are some of the joint candidate appearances scheduled for the 1988 presidential campaign up to March 8, the "Super Tuesday" when primaries will be held in 21 states. Other events are planned, but dates have not yet been set. July 1: Public Broadcasting Service, Houston, Democratic debate. Sept. 2: Public Broadcasting Service, Houston, Republican debate. Sept. 12: Iowa Republican State Dinner. Oct. 15: Republican Western Regional Conference, Seattle. Nov. 7: Iowa Democratic Jefferson-Jackson Day. Dec. 1: NBC debates, Washington, D.C., both parties.

Democrat Felice Wiener has declined an invitation from the League of Women Voters of Lower Merion and Narberth to debate Republican opponent Colleen Sheehan in two candidate forums in October. Wiener, who is running against Sheehan for the open state House seat in the 149th District, cited scheduling conflicts. Her campaign manager said she would like to debate at another time. League president Ellen Blumberg sent letters to both candidates earlier this month, inviting them to participate in two debates - one in Lower Merion and one in Upper Merion - at mutually agreeable times and dates between Oct. 17 and 31. Sheehan accepted the invitation.

A story Monday about a debate involving Pennsylvania's Eighth Congressional District candidates misspelled the name of the League of Women Voters moderator, Jody Bender. The Inquirer wants its news report to be fair and correct in every respect, and regrets when it is not. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, contact assistant managing editor David Sullivan (215-854-2357) at The Inquirer, Box 8263, Philadelphia 19101, or e-mail dsullivan@phillynews.com .

The League of Women Voters has been selected as the sponsor for the only televised debate that Mayor Goode and Republican challenger Frank L. Rizzo will hold before the Nov. 3 mayoral election. WPVI-TV (Channel 6) will be the host of the debate, which is expected to be held in early October, a source said yesterday. Negotiations for an acceptable date and format are still under way, a League of Women Voters spokesman said yesterday. Last week, Goode agreed to debate Rizzo but did not indicate whether he would accept the league's invitation.

In response to the opinion piece about Merit Selection by Temple Law Professor Marina Angel ("Merit Selection Means Stealing My Vote"): The process of choosing judges has been one of considerable controversy and debate, as judges have become enmeshed in the political mill. Because of the need for a fair and impartial justice system, many citizens are concerned about the undue pressures judges face from political parties and their leaders. The League of Women Voters of Philadelphia supports an efficient unified court system and a responsible, ethical judiciary that is free from political influence.

Sorry, Vanna White fans. Channel 6 general manager Rick Spinner, saying he "wouldn't allow the mistakes of the League of Women Voters to prevent us from doing the right thing," reversed himself yesterday morning and directed his station to carry last night's Goode-Rendell debate, even though it meant dumping "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune. " Public service over profits? At Channel 6? The station that carried a canned interview with Blake Carrington instead of a live gun battle on Osage Avenue?

Burlington County voters will have a chance to grill freeholder and Eighth District state Assembly and Senate candidates on Tuesday night. Candidates' Night, sponsored by several local chapters of the League of Women Voters, will be at 7:30 p.m. at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church on Chester Avenue in Moorestown. All 10 candidates have indicated that they will attend, said Patricia Beard, president of the League of Women Voters of Medford, Medford Lakes and Evesham. The candidates for the two slots on the Burlington County Board of Freeholders are incumbent Republicans Martha Bark, freeholder director, and Eugene W. Stafford.

In what could draw the largest audience to witness any part of the governor's race, Democrat Dan Onorato and Republican Tom Corbett will meet Oct. 18 for a live televised debate at 6ABC. The one-hour event, cosponsored by the League of Women Voters, will close a series of three scheduled debates between the two men from Pittsburgh. Jim Gardner, the station's top news anchor, will moderate the program, which is to start at 7 p.m. It will follow another televised debate, Oct. 16, at a Pittsburgh station.

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania voters who go to the polls without photo identification will be able to vote in next month's presidential election after all. They won't even have to fill out provisional ballots. So ruled a Commonwealth Court judge Tuesday in the closely watched legal battle over Pennsylvania's controversial voter-ID law. Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. upheld the law - but blocked it from taking full effect in the Nov. 6 election. In essence, the rules remain as they were during the law's so-called "soft roll-out" in the April primary: Voters will be asked for the photo ID required by the new law, but if they don't have it, they can still vote.

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania voters who go to the polls without photo identification will be able to vote in next month's presidential election after all. They won't even have to fill out provisional ballots. So ruled a Commonwealth Court judge Tuesday in the closely-watched legal battle over Pennsylvania's controversial voter ID law. Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. upheld the law - but blocked it from taking full effect until after the Nov. 6 election. In essence, the rules remain as they were during the law's so-called "soft roll-out" in the April primary: voters will be asked for the photo ID required by the new law, but if they don't have it, they can still vote.

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) and his Republican opponent in November, State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, have agreed to three debates next month. The first, on Oct. 4, will be at Montclair State University and broadcast on NJTV. The second, on Oct. 10, will be broadcast live on New Jersey 101.5 FM. The third, sponsored by the League of Women voters, will air Oct. 14 on WABC-TV, 6ABC, and Univision. - Inquirer staff

      Signaling that it will tolerate "no voter disenfranchisement," a divided state Supreme Court is sending the dispute over Pennsylvania's new voting law back to a lower court to decide whether the state is doing enough to get photo ID cards to voters who need them. In a 4-2 ruling issued Tuesday, the high court ordered Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr., who upheld the law in August, to file a supplemental opinion on whether the alternate-ID programs set up by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and state election officials are providing the "liberal access" to ID cards that the legislature intended.

Signaling that it will tolerate "no voter disenfranchisement," a divided state Supreme Court is sending the dispute over Pennsylvania's new voting law back to a lower court to decide whether the state is doing enough to get photo ID cards to voters who need them. In a 4-2 ruling issued Tuesday, the high court ordered Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr., who upheld the law in August, to file a supplemental opinion on whether the alternate-ID programs set up by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and state election officials are providing the "liberal access" to ID cards that the legislature intended.

T HERE'S so much worry out there about the new voter-ID law. You could feel it in the air Monday afternoon at a meeting of volunteer "voter advocates" who wanted to learn how to help seniors collect the documents needed to obtain a voter ID. Armed with that info, they plan to help seniors at PennDOT - where the wait can be long, the forms confounding and the clerks terribly trained. Case in point: a Fishtown woman described last week how her elderly mother had been told she needed her husband's death certificate to get a voter ID. The mother and daughter drove home for the document, only to learn, upon returning to PennDOT, that it hadn't been needed in the first place.

I'm sure you remember my meltdown in this space last week after a Commonwealth Court judge upheld the state's ill-timed, ill-conceived and downright devious show-me-your-papers voter ID law last week, a political and poisonous disenfranchisement ploy if I ever saw one. Believe me, I'm still disgusted. But while a team of lawyers headed by the ACLU battles it out in state Supreme Court, we have to turn our outrage into action. Now. It's not just about new voters and the obstacles facing them.

A NUMBER of Philadelphia-area clergy came together Sunday night to speak out against Pennsylvania's controversial new voter-ID law, saying it will prevent thousands from casting their ballots.   The Rev. William B. Moore of the Tenth Memorial Baptist Church in North Philadelphia said an 80-year-old parishioner of his is one of them. She was born in a South Carolina home, delivered by a midwife and never had a birth certificate. Without that, she can't get a photo ID in Pennsylvania, even though she has a Social Security card and voted in prior elections, he said.

Last week, I wondered if anyone was as outraged as I was about Pennsylvania's outlandish Voter ID law, which stomps all over our right to vote, supposedly to combat fraud - that is, if said fraud can ever be found. I just couldn't believe that voters of every stripe weren't protesting and marching against such an oppressive affront to the electorate. Well, on Saturday, I found plenty of outrage among the volunteers, activists, and officials in Germantown, there for the grand opening of the Pennsylvania Voter ID Coalition's Philadelphia Operations Center.

Pennsylvania will have an election crisis on its hands if almost one in 10 legal voters aren't allowed to cast ballots in November because of the state's new requirement that they show specific forms of identification at the polls.   Yet that's exactly where the state is headed, according to data released last week by Harrisburg election officials. The disclosure that more than 758,000 registered voters — or 9.2 percent of the state's 8.2 million voters — lack photo ID cards from the state Transportation Department shows the new law could disenfranchise voters on a massive scale.