Updated 4:08 p.m. ET - STERLING, VA -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign announced Monday afternoon that the candidate would add two campaign stops on Election Day in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

A campaign official said Romney would make stops in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, part of what the GOP nominee's campaign called an effort to "keep working until the polls close."

Romney campaign advisers have eyed Pennsylvania in recent weeks as a backstop against losing other battleground states, especially as Obama has managed to maintain a mostly consistent if slight advantage over Romney in Ohio. Pennsylvania lacks a robust early voting effort and the vast majority of ballots are cast on election day. Romney's campaign and outside groups supporting it have poured money into television advertising there in recent weeks.

Pittsburgh has advantage of bleeding over into the Ohio media markets, too.

David Goldman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney waves to supporters after finishing his speech at a campaign event at the Lynchburg Regional Airport, Monday, Nov. 5, 2012.

In Cleveland, Romney will visit his campaign's victory office, according to a Republican operative familiar with the campaign's plans.

Romney will travel to the two Midwestern battlegrounds after voting in Belmont, Massachusetts on Tuesday morning.

On Monday, Romney barnstormed across four swing states, with rallies in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. The New Hampshire midnight rally in in Manchester had been billed as the campaign's finale.

Jen Psaki, the traveling campaign spokeswoman for President Barack Obama, suggested the stop was a sign of weakness.

Slideshow: Election 2012

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

Campaigning with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, voting and election results.

Launch slideshow

"I will say it's no surprise that Mitt Romney is headed to Ohio, or reportedly headed to Ohio tomorrow," she told reporters in a gaggle aboard Air Force One. "Without that state it's a rocky road to victory -- an insurmountable road I would say."

Romney campaign advisers say the candidate himself decided on Monday to add the last minute stops, preferring to motivate volunteers and supporters by showing them that he was working just as hard as they are in the final hours, to sitting at home and waiting for results to come in.

MORRISVILLE, PA -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney traveled here to Pennsylvania on Sunday for a trip that, in two days or so, would seem either prescient or desperate.

The GOP nominee made a late personal appeal for Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes before a crowd of over 25,000. Romney's stop here in suburban Philadelphia marked his first stop in Pennsylvania since late September, and coincided with a last-minute advertising blitz from his campaign, the Republican National Committee and a supportive super PAC.

"This audience and your voices are being heard all over the nation. They’re being heard in my heart," Romney said, taking the stage on this frosty night. "The people of America understand we’re taking back the White House because we’re going to win Pennsylvania.”

The Romney campaign contended the trip was indicative of surging momentum for the Republican nominee, who could expand his pathway to the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency by winning the Keystone State.

"This is one of those states that came into view right after the first debate," Romney adviser Kevin Madden told reporters traveling with the candidate on Sunday. "And as a result it just presented a great opportunity. So we've seen that state just get closer and closer and closer."

Democrats contend Romney's move is a bluff -- a signal that pathways through other battleground states have been foreclosed. Nonetheless, the Obama campaign did spend money on television ads in the state, and are sending high-profile surrogates to the state to campaign on Obama's behalf.

History nonetheless suggests Pennsylvania will be an uphill climb for Romney. The state has reliably supported the Democratic nominee for president in every election since 1988, and in 2008 Sen. John McCain, too, made a late effort in the state, only to lose it by 10 points on Election Day.

But Romney has some advantages here that make the state a tempting target so late in the game. In addition to GOP ad spending in the state, Republicans won two major statewide races here in 2010, electing Sen. Pat Toomey and Gov. Tom Corbett. The Romney campaign also boasts of a robust ground-game here, in part as a holdover of those successes.

Romney delivered his closing argument speech here with a few Pennsylvania flourishes, hitting President Obama for what he called his "war on coal," and name dropping Chris Christie, the popular governor-next-door to this Philadelphia suburb.

The event's one spoiler: the weather. With Romney more than an hour late thanks to a ground stop at the Philadelphia airport, some frustrated and frozen supporters streamed out of the event while Romney spoke, many having arrived as early as two o'clock in the afternoon to secure seats on the bleachers and beat the crowds who ultimately packed the venue.

MIDDLETOWN, Penn. — Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan spearheaded a last-minute effort by Republicans to put Pennsylvania in play on Tuesday with a trip to the Keystone State on Saturday. 

As Election Day draws near, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney's campaign has tried to expand its path to 270 electoral votes by campaigning and spending money in Pennsylvania, a state which last went for a GOP candidate in a presidential election in 1988.

“If we win Pennsylvania, we save America in three days,” Ryan told a group of supporters standing outside his rally at the Harrisburg International Airport.

President Barack Obama carried Pennsylvania during the 2008 election by more than 10 points, but in recent days, nearly $10 million in ad buys by the Romney campaign, the Republican National Committee and GOP super PACs have infiltrated the state.

“Can I just tell you how red Pennsylvania’s gonna be on Tuesday? Because I know how red it’s gonna, it’s gonna be this red, okay,” Sen. Pat Toomey, Ryan’s former roommate on Capitol Hill, said pointing to his bright red jacket.

Related: Polls: Obama stays ahead in Ohio, deadlocked with Romney in Fla.

Republican Gov. Tom Corbett also joined Ryan Saturday, just three days before the election and believes his state could determine a very tight race between Obama and Romney on Tuesday.

“The one thing I know about Pennsylvania, and I hope you remember: We are the Keystone State. Right? No offense to my friend in Virginia, or to the rest of the country. But we are the Keystone State to this nation and we are the Keystone State to this election,” Corbett said.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

The GOP VP nominee has held three other campaign events in Pennsylvania over the last three months, but holding a rally in the state on the last weekend before the election is typically reserved for key battleground states — further indicating the GOPs desire to win the state.

“I say in 3 days, we win, Obama loses, how does that sound?” Ryan said to a very enthusiastic 2,000-person crowd before heading to the battleground states of Virginia and Florida to wrap up the last Saturday of the campaign.

Updated at 5:50pmET: A rapidly-approaching conclusion loomed over the 2012 election on Saturday, as President Barack Obama, Republican nominee Mitt Romney, their running mates and surrogates swarmed a series of battleground states to make their closing messages.

Obama and Romney each employed a mixture of uplifting, forward-looking rhetoric with attacks on the other during a whirlwind tour of battleground states set to decide the election on Tuesday.

 Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Looking for a catalyzing moment to push past Obama in those swing states, Romney opted to play up the president's comments Friday at a rally, at which he urged supporters to vote as a means of seeking "revenge" against Republicans.

"Yesterday the president said something you may have heard by now that I think surprised a lot of people. Speaking to an audience, he said you know voting is the best 'revenge,'" Romney said. "He told his supporters, voting for revenge. Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country."

The Obama campaign, in response Saturday afternoon, called the line of attack "very small."

"I think it's interesting that that's the closing argument that the Romney campaign is making," said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Related: Obama aide explains 'voting is best revenge' comment

The remarks were consistent with Romney's effort to project momentum heading into the campaign's final weekend, riding high after drawing the largest crowd of its campaign at a Friday night rally in Ohio. The Republican ticket has essentially tried to co-opt the themes of "change" from Obama's 2008 campaign as its closing argument now against the president.

But the Romney campaign's outward optimism clashed with new polls giving Obama an ever-so-slight edge in pivotal swing states. New NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls showed Romney trailing Obama by six points among likely voters in Ohio, and by two points in Florida.

 Related: Polls: Obama stays ahead in Ohio, deadlocked with Romney in Fla.

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's trip Saturday afternoon to Pennsylvania, a state which the GOP has only contended in the final days of the campaign, was emblematic of the campaigns' dueling perspectives toward the campaign. The Romney campaign argued it was a sign of surging momentum while the Obama campaign cast the trip as an act of desperation — a Hail Mary effort driven by foreclosed opportunities in other battleground states. (Romney will stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday.)

While the outcome on Election Day is far from assured, a certain wistfulness set in as Obama looked back at his four years in office. He argued his experience as president showed he was someone whom voters could trust, meaning to imply as well that Romney wasn't.

"When you elect a president, you don’t know what kinds of emergencies may happen. You don’t know what problems he or she may deal with," he said. "But you want to be able to trust your president."

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In this composite photo: President Barack Obama points while speaking at a campaign event at Mentor High School in Ohio, and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa November 3, 2012.  

And amid the late-breaking attack by Romney meant to cast Obama as embittered, the president told a crowd in Mentor, Ohio: "I don't feel cynical. I feel hopeful."

There were signs that awareness of the campaign's approaching horizon had set in among the Romney campaign as well.

"It was very emotional when I gave my last address by myself, because I hear the voices and the passion of the people out there that are really hurting, and they are etched in my mind and my heart, as they are with Mitt," Ann Romney told the press corps traveling with her husband. "It's been an extraordinary experience."

 Recommended: Ryan travels to Pennsylvania, trying to put state in play

The full range of reflection would have to wait, though, until Wednesday. Obama and Romney — along with their running mates, Vice President Joe Biden and Ryan — each have a long list of stops ahead of them during the remainder of Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Their efforts are met by hoards of Democratic and Republican surrogates, who fanned out across the country as part of a frenzied effort in hopes of  adding a few more swing states to their candidate's column on Tuesday. 

DAYTON, OH — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney will launch ads in Pennsylvania before the election to bolster what the GOP calls an effort to build upon momentum in the Democratic-leaning state. 

NBC News ad-tracking sources report the Romney campaign has bought only $120,000 in ad time, which the Republican National Committee said covers only Nov 5-6 — next Monday and Election Day itself. But the new effort is Romney's first foray into Pennsylvania since GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan held an airport rally near Pittsburgh on Oct. 20. Romney last campaigned in Pennsylvania in late Sept.

The Romney campaign said Tuesday that this effort marked an expanded capacity for the former Massachusetts governor to win a more reliably blue state. But the buy, for now, is only for Johnstown-Altoona (central PA) and Philadelphia, which is a small buy given the expensive Philly TV market. 

Romney joins Restore Our Future, a supportive super PAC, in advertising in Pennsylvania. The super PAC's move prompted President Barack Obama's campaign to make its own ad buy in the state, spending at least $1.3 million on broadcast and cable in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from Wednesday through Election Day. The size of that ad buy could expand. 

The Romney campaign released a copy of a new ad, entitled "Crushed by your policies," which focuses on coal miners in western Pennsylvania. That spot could have crossover appeal into swing territory in eastern Ohio, where the economy also relies on coal.

The Romney campaign's released a memo accompanying news of its ad buy, arguing that the new ad was evidence that Romney would be going on offense in the Keystone State, which last voted for a Republican in 1988.

"With one week to go, and 96 percent of the vote on the table on Election Day in Pennsylvania, this expansion of the electoral map demonstrates that Governor Romney’s momentum has jumped containment from the usual target states and has spread to deeper blue states that Chicago never anticipated defending," Romney campaign political director Rich Beeson wrote in the memo.

The Obama campaign quickly fired back with a memo of their own, and arguing that the late game effort by the Romney campaign to compete in traditionally blue states indicated fear in Boston that Romney would lose Ohio, a state he's campaigned in more than any other, and in which many independent analysts agree his political fortunes may yet rest.

“Three things are now absolutely clear in this race – we have a significant early vote advantage in states from North Carolina to Nevada, there is no Romney momentum in the battleground states, and the Romney campaign has found itself with a tremendously narrow and improbable path to 270 electoral votes," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote. "Now, like Republicans did in 2008, they are throwing money at states where they never built an organization and have been losing for two years.  Let’s be very clear, the Romney campaign and its allies decision to go up with advertising in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota is a decision made out of weakness, not strength."

Vice President Joe Biden was set to campaign in Pennsylvania this week, but the trip was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy.

Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET -- A Pennsylvania judge has blocked enforcement of the key section of a voter identification law which the state legislature enacted and Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed last March, meaning that the law will not be in effect for the Nov. 6 election.

Judge Robert Simpson said that even with the streamlined procedures that state officials proposed to make it easier for voters without ID cards to obtain them, “the proposed changes are to occur about five weeks before the general election, and I question whether sufficient time now remains to attain the goal of liberal access” to ID cards.

He said, “I expected more photo IDs to have been issued by this time. For this reason, I accept Petitioners’ argument that in the remaining five weeks before the general election, the gap between the photo IDs issued and the estimated need will not be closed.”

Those challenging the law included the Homeless Advocacy Project, the League of Women Voters and other groups.

Simpson ruled that those voters who cast provisional ballots will not be required to return to their county election board within six days of the election to show proof of identification.

Simpson’s ruling means that the photo ID requirement won’t be in effect for the Nov. 6 election, but it may be in effect for future elections. His decision did not strike down the entire law; in fact he rejected efforts by those challenging to law to stop state officials from educating voters about the voter ID requirement.

Simpson also said that those challenging the law have conceded that the part of the law which requires proof of identification for absentee voting does not harm would-be voters and may be implemented.

According to a recent Franklin & Marshall poll, nearly three out of five registered Pennsylvania voters favor the photo identification requirement.

Although some Republicans had hopes this summer of making Pennsylvania competitive in the presidential race, recent polling shows GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney between 7 and 12 percentage points behind President Barack Obama in the state.

Pennsylvania also has a Senate race this year, but Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. is 12 points ahead of Republican challenger Tom Smith, according to that Franklin & Marshall poll.

Special report: Voting rights in America

State Republican Party chairman Rob Gleason said in August that no matter what the courts ruled, voters in the state think they need a form of identification, so the law will have an effect. Gleason said, “Enough has been said; everybody’s heard about it. No matter what they (the courts) decide now, people think you’ve got to have it.”

Even in the wake of Simpson’s injunction, opponents of the law still contend that it is deeply flawed.

“While we’re happy that voters in Pennsylvania will not be turned away if they do not have an ID, we are concerned that the ruling will allow election workers to ask for ID at the polls and this could cause confusion,” said Penda Hair, co-director of the Advancement Project, an advocacy group opposed to the law. “This injunction serves as a mere Band-Aid for law’s inherent problems, not an effective remedy.”

An initial assessment by Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele’s office found that 91 percent of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters have Pennsylvania Department of Transportation-issued licenses which are acceptable ID for voting.

It also reported that names of nearly 760,000 voters couldn’t be matched between the state’s voter list and the driver’s license database. But some of those non-matching names were merely name mismatches of the same person between one database and another.

The law also says other forms of ID are acceptable, such as military ID cards, U.S. passports, identification cards from accredited Pennsylvania colleges or universities or state senior care facilities, or other photo identification cards issued by the federal, Pennsylvania, county or municipal governments.

Today's Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on a challenge to the state's strict new voter ID law amounts to this message to the state: either prove that voters can easily get a new photo ID card or face the near-certain prospect that the state Supreme Court will block it from going into effect.

A state court judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month against a group of challengers to the new law, citing insufficient proof that it would disenfranchise minority voters. The challengers immediately appealed, and now the state's Supreme Court has overturned the lower court ruling, sending the case back to the judge with instructions to figure out what the practical implications of the law will actually be.

Here's the rub. The Pennsylvania legislature, in requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls, intended to make it easy for residents without a drivers license to get a voter ID card by showing only a minimal amount of identification when they apply for one. But the state agencies responsible for issuing voter ID cards are instead insisting on more rigorous proof of identity than the new law requires. 

The agencies are demanding that applicants produce a birth certificate stamped with a raised seal, a Social Security card, and two other forms of identification showing the current residence. The state agencies say if they give the cards out on the more relaxed basis spelled out in the new voter ID law, that would create a homeland security problem, because the cards can be used to board aircraft.  

So today, the state Supreme Court instructed the judge to take another crack at this case and determine whether the state will actually make it difficult to get one of these ID cards.

Until then, the law remains in effect. But the court made it clear today that unless the state can demonstrate that the voter ID cards can be obtained in the more relaxed manner spelled out in the new law, then the court would almost certainly block the voter ID law before the general election in November.  

SHANKSVILLE, PA -- Of all Joe Biden's political skills and foibles, perhaps his most powerful asset was on display in Shanksville, PA on Tuesday: Compassion in the face of others' grief.

Biden, who lost his wife and daughter in a 1972 car accident, commemorated 9/11 victims at the site of the Flight 93 crash and described with heavy emotion the grief he knows their families felt in the aftermath of the terror attacks.

Jeff Swensen / Getty Images

Vice President Joseph Biden speaks at the Flight 93 National Memorial during observances commemorating the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Shanksville, Pa, on September 11, 2012.

"No matter how many anniversaries you experience, for at least an instant, the terror of that moment returns, the lingering echo of that phone call, that sense of total disbelief that envelops you," he said. "You feel like you're being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your chest."

"My hope for you all is that as every year passes, the depth of your pain recedes," he continued. "And you find comfort - as I have - genuine comfort in recalling his smile, her laugh, their touch."  

The ceremony, which included a reading of each of the 40 passengers and crew members' names, took place at the still-incomplete memorial in the small Pennsylvania town where the hijacked plane crashed.

Offering comfort on a sparkling morning not unlike the one of the terror attacks, Biden said the nation has not forgotten the heroes' sacrifice.

"They’ve not forgotten the heroism of your husbands, wives, sons daughters, mothers, fathers," he said. "And that what they did for this country is still etched in the minds of not only you, but millions of Americans forever."

At this week’s Republican convention in Tampa, one of the tasks of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and state party chairman Rob Gleason is to convince party activists that their state really is winnable for Mitt Romney, firing the delegates up so “when they go back to Pennsylvania they hit the ground running,” as Corbett said Monday.

But there are reasons to doubt that Pennsylvania will be one of the states where Romney and President Barack Obama will be fighting it out 60 days from now in the closing phase of the campaign.

• First, the Democrats enjoy an edge in voter registration over Republicans in Pennsylvania of well over one million voters. In the city of Philadelphia the Democratic voter registration advantage is better than 6 to 1, which is one reason why healthy turnout in Philadelphia is vital to Obama and to any Democratic presidential candidate. In some jeopardy in Pennsylvania just eight days before the 2004 election, Democratic candidate John Kerry brought in former president Bill Clinton, recuperating from heart bypass surgery, to join him at a rally in downtown Philadelphia. Kerry ended up winning the state by 144,000.
• No Democrat has lost the state since Mike Dukakis in 1988. Obama carried it by 620,000 votes in 2008 and his margin in Philadelphia was nearly 480,000 votes, margins that will be very hard for Romney to erode and overcome, especially if he’s investing most of his time and campaign advertising dollars in places such as Ohio and Florida.
• In 2008, Obama carried bellwether exurban Chester County which George W. Bush had carried fairly easily in 2000 and 2004  -- Democrats see this as evidence that highly affluent, college-educated exurban voters are trending Democratic over the long term.
• The latest Franklin & Marshall poll shows Obama with a six percentage point lead in the state, 44 percent to 38 percent, over Romney, with 15 percent undecided.
• So far, both sides' ad spending in Pennsylvania has been modest, compared to what they've been spending in states such as Ohio, Virginia, and Nevada. Three Republican groups have spent more than $11 million on TV ads, according to NBC's ad-tracking data, but Romney's own campaign has yet to spend any money on TV in Pennsylvania. The Obama campaign and an allied group, Priorities USA, have spent $8 million on TV so far in the state.
• Finally, if voter sentiment turns really sour on Obama in September and October he’ll be fighting for survival in other places such as Virginia, Iowa, and Florida, and not just in Pennsylvania.

Yet, having said all that, Republicans scored some remarkable successes in Pennsylvania in the 2010 elections: gaining 15 seats in the state House, taking control of the legislature (and thus of re-districting), electing a Republican governor, a United States senator, Pat Toomey, and gaining five House seats that Democrats had held, most significantly in battleground Bucks County and Delaware County in the suburbs outside Philadelphia.

Read: Villaraigosa: Republicans 'can't just trot out a brown face'

In an interview, Gleason explained that Republicans built on their successes in the 2010 elections in 2011: “Last year in our local grassroots elections, we took 53 counties, we’ve never had 53 counties before (out of 67 counties in the state); we have courthouse control of the commissioners. So our grassroots is playing really well.”

And he noted that in every mail piece the state GOP sent out in county commissioner races last year, “We had Obama’s picture on them” -- linking the president to local Democratic candidates.

Gleason has been state party chairman for a long stretch, six years, and he said, “I’ve learned a lot of lessons – Barack Obama taught me a few four years ago.”

Gleason kept his state party staff on the payroll after the 2010 elections. “In the old days they would lay people off after the election and just wait for the next one. I’ve had the same team working around the state: our job is turnout.”

“Mitt Romney has to sell himself. I think that he is doing a good job,” he said. “He plays really well in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where John McCain maybe didn’t and maybe some other people didn’t. There are a lot of independents there now and they see Mitt Romney as a bit more moderate than some of candidates in the past.”

Recommended: Convention seeks to repair GOP erosion with women and Latinos

But he said Philadelphia is “where we get crushed. We lost it by 478,000 votes in 2008….Our biggest problem was that there are 1,999 precincts” in Philadelphia “and in 1,000 of them we didn’t have a Republican on the election board. You’re allowed to have a minimum of two Republicans on the (five-member) board. We didn’t have any…. I hope that by Election Day we’ll only have 600 uncovered.”

The importance of having Republicans on local elections boards is that now with state law requiring photo ID for voters, “they’ll make sure everybody shows a photo ID.”

On Sept. 13, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed the voter identification law which Corbett signed last year to be enforced in the Nov. 6 election.\

More from Tom Curry: Polling data on recession-wracked electorate gives GOP hope

Even if the court blocks enforcement of the law, or if the Justice Department intervenes in the dispute, Gleason said, “Enough has been said; everybody’s heard about it. No matter what they (the courts) decide now, people think you’ve got to have it.”

And some Republicans think the voter ID requirement will deter the use of “street money” which some Republicans allege Democrats use to pay people to cast votes using the names of deceased voters.

Gleason said it would be “a wonderful victory for me” to hold Obama’s margin in Philadelphia to under 400,000.

“We lost the suburbs by 200,000, but this time he said “we going to win the suburbs this time. That (2008) was a whole different ball game.”

Referring to Gleason and his team, Franklin & Marshall College pollster and political scientist Terry Madonna said, “I think they did learn a lesson (from the 2008 campaign) about the organizational side of things.”

But he noted that every poll in Pennsylvania shows Romney behind. And Madonna asked, “What is their plan to win the Philadelphia suburbs?”

Updated at 1:15pm ET A Pennsylvania judge denied a request Wednesday to block enforcement of the state’s new voter identification law.

Judge Robert Simpson said the law “imposes only a limited burden on voters’ rights, and the burden does not outweigh the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.”

Those seeking to block the law did not show that “disenfranchisement was immediate or inevitable,” wrote Simpson.

In refusing to grant an injunction to stop the law from being enforced, Simpson said he was convinced that state officials were making efforts to inform voters about the law’s requirements and to implement it “in a non-partisan, even-handed manner.”

He also said that based on the availability of absentee voting and provisional ballots as well as court intervention for voters with special hardships, “I am not convinced any of the individual petitioners (seeking to block the law) or other witnesses (at the trial) will not have their votes counted in the general election.”

Simpson conducted a trial in state court in Harrisburg, Pa. after the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups sued to block enforcement of the law which was signed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett in March.

Referring to one elderly woman seeking to have the law blocked and a student who was a witness at the trial who suffers from autism and other ailments, Simpson wrote, “I would be shocked” if they and other similar voters would not qualify for absentee voting.

Simpson also ruled that granting an injunction to block the law would interfere with the state’s efforts underway this month to educate poll workers and with the state’s TV, mobile phone, mail and billboard campaign to inform voters about the law’s requirements.

Those trying to prevent the law from being enforced – who included the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Homeless Advocacy Project – had a high legal threshold they had to meet: that there was no set of circumstances under which the statute would be valid. Simpson ruled that they failed to meet that test.

He indicated that the plaintiffs could try to show in future litigation – once the law is enforced for the Nov. 6 election and future elections – that it imposes an unconstitutional burden on specific voters.

Nearly 760,000 voters couldn't be matched between Pennsylvania's voter list and the driver's license database

The plaintiffs had cited a remark by Republican House Majority Leader Michael Turzai at a GOP event that the voter ID law "is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” But Simpson said that the U.S. Supreme Court, in upholding the Indiana voter ID law in 2008, had said if a law has valid neutral purposes, then “those justifications should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators.”

In his decision to deny the request for an injunction, Simpson relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s decision which upheld the Indiana voter ID law, and on decisions by state supreme courts in Georgia and Michigan upholding their states’ voter ID laws.

The ACLU and other groups said they would file an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Pollster and political scientist Terry Madonna at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., who has been a critic of the voter ID law, said that one of the justices on the seven-member Pennsylvania Supreme Court has been placed on administrative leave while being prosecuted for using judicial staff for campaign purposes, so the court now has three Republican members and three Democratic ones.

Simpson’s ruling would stand if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court were to deadlock three-to-three. But Madonna noted that the chief justice of Supreme Court, Ronald Castille, a Republican, did vote last spring with the Democratic justices in an important redistricting decision. Castille “could be the wild card here,” Madonna said.

As for the law’s impact on balloting in November, Madonna said, “I don’t think it will affect the outcome of the election” in Pennsylvania.

Madonna said “there is a monumental debate about how many people are affected by this” voter ID requirement. “No one knows for sure the exact number. Having said that, the election here would have to be very, very close… probably within 50,000 to 75,000” for the law to affect the outcome. “And we don’t have presidential elections in this state decided by 50,000 to 75,000 people,” he said.

The closest presidential election in Pennsylvania in the last 50 years was in 1988 when Republican George H.W. Bush beat Democrat Michael Dukakis by 105,000 votes out of a total vote of 4.5 million. In 2006, Democrat John Kerry carried the state by 144,000 votes out of a total of 5.7 million over George W. Bush.

Election law expert Richard Hasen at the University of California, Irvine, the author of the new book, The Voting Wars, said on his blog that Wednesday’s ruling is “almost certainly going to lead to Pennsylvania’s use of its new voter id law in the November elections.”

He called Simpson’s decision “a careful opinion by a judge who struggled with the evidence and the law and, as I expected, issued a thoughtful, non-ideological and well-done decision.  I disagree with the decision’s bottom line… but there is no doubt this is a judge acting in good faith applying the law and facts as he found them.”

Hasen added that the Department of Justice might try to get a ruling blocking use of the law “raising a violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, (but) I think that such a remedy would be unlikely to be granted at this time.”

An assessment by Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele’s office found that 91 percent of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters have Pennsylvania Department of Transportation issued licenses which are acceptable ID for voting.

It also reported that names of nearly 760,000 voters couldn’t be matched between the state’s voter list and the driver’s license database.

Aichele spokesman Nick Winkler said last months that this number included some simple name mismatches between one database and another – “Dave Smith” versus  “David B. Smith” for example – and that some of the 760,000 do in fact possess valid IDs for voting.

The law also says other forms of ID are acceptable, such as military ID cards, U.S. passports, identification cards from accredited Pennsylvania colleges or universities, Pennsylvania senior care facility IDs, or other photo identification cards issued by the federal, Pennsylvania, county or municipal governments.

The state-by-state battle over voter eligibility is not only being fought in the court of public opinion, but in actual courtrooms as well.

Since state rules help determine who ends up getting to vote, it’s possible that new voter identification requirements enacted since the 2008 election could make a difference on Nov. 6 in a few states where there are close presidential, House, and Senate contests.

Even as his department’s lawyers are fighting against Texas and other states in court, Attorney General Eric Holder joined the rhetorical melee last week in a speech to the NAACP by comparing voter ID laws to states’ poll taxes which were banned nearly 50 years ago. Holder said some people "would have to travel great distances” to get state-issued ID cards “and some would struggle to pay for those documents necessary to get them." He said, “We call those poll taxes.”

Poll taxes, which had often been used to deter blacks from voting in Southern states, were outlawed in federal elections by the 24th Amendment to the Constitution in 1964 and in state elections by a Supreme Court decision in 1966.

Holder’s analogy drew a sharp retort from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who said Holder “once again defamed my state, and our state legislature, by equating our common sense voter I.D. law with a poll tax.  By invoking the specter of Jim Crow racism, the attorney general is playing the lowest form of identity politics.”

Here’s the state of play on the litigation over who gets to vote in some key states:

New Hampshire (4 electoral votes; 2008 winner: Obama with 54 percent)
Last month the Republican-controlled state legislature overrode Democratic Gov. John Lynch’s veto of a voter ID bill. The state is covered by Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act which requires it to get pre-approval -- called “preclearance” -- from the Justice Department or from the federal court in Washington before implementing any changes in voting procedures. A Justice Department official said DOJ’s determination will be issued on Sept. 5.

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney will be campaigning in the state, which the NBC News Political Unit rates as a toss-up, on Friday.

Wisconsin (10 electoral votes; 2008 winner: Obama with 56 percent)
In two different challenges, two county court judges in Wisconsin have issued injunctions barring enforcement of the voter ID law which Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed last year.

One of those injunctions was issued Tuesday by Dane County Judge David Flanagan, who last year signed the petition to get Walker recalled from office. The recall effort failed on June 5 when Walker won with 53 percent of the vote.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, announced Wednesday that the state is appealing Flanagan’s decision. The NBC News Political Unit rates the state a toss-up.

Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes; 2008 winner: Obama with 54 percent)
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and other groups have sued to block enforcement of the voter ID law signed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett in March.

A trial will begin in state court next Wednesday in Harrisburg, Pa., -before Judge Robert Simpson.

An assessment by Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele’s office found that 91 percent of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters have Pennsylvania Department of Transportation issued licenses which are acceptable ID for voting.

It also reported that names of nearly 760,000 voters couldn’t be matched between the state’s voter list and the driver’s license database. Aichele spokesman Nick Winkler said this number included some simple name mismatches between one database and another – “Dave Smith” versus  “David B. Smith” for example – and that some of the 760,000 do in fact possess valid IDs for voting.

The law also says other forms of ID are acceptable, such as military ID cards, U.S. passports, identification cards from accredited Pennsylvania colleges or universities, Pennsylvania senior care facility IDs, or other photo identification cards issued by the federal, Pennsylvania, county or municipal governments.

Someone without any of those forms of ID can go to one of the more than 70 state Department of Transportation offices and get a state-issued ID.

But David Gersch, an attorney with Arnold & Porter in Washington who is one of the lawyers seeking to have the law blocked, said the state “just doesn’t have the wherewithal to issue that many IDs. It’s just not going to get done” before Election Day.

Gersch said Judge Simpson’s ruling will probably be issued within ten days of the trial’s ending.

The NBC News Political Unit rates Pennsylvania “lean Democratic.”

Florida (29 electoral votes, 2008 winner: Obama with 51 percent)
In the toss-up state of Florida -- where President Barack Obama is campaigning Thursday -- the controversy isn't over voter identification, but over an effort by Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner to have people ineligible to vote removed from the voter rolls.

The Justice Department sued Detzner over this effort, contending that the 1993 National Voter Registration Act doesn't allow states, within 90 days of an election, to conduct a systematic program to remove ineligible people from its voter lists. (Florida’s primary is on August 14.)

Last month, federal district court Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that the way the state first went about its eligibility checking was flawed and “was likely to have a discriminatory impact” on newly naturalized citizens. (About 87,000 Florida residents became naturalized citizens in 2011.)

But Hinkle also said the initial state effort did find a small number of non-citizens who were registered to vote and the evidence “suggests that some actually voted in the past.”

He ruled that a state “can remove an improperly registered noncitizen” from the list of eligible voters, even during the 90-day window prior to an election. 

The Department of Homeland Security had refused Florida’s request to cross-check names of people suspected of being ineligible to vote with a federal databases of non-citizens. After Hinkle’s ruling, DHS reversed itself and allowed Florida to use the database.

Five counties in Florida are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The American Civil Liberties Union and a Latino voter mobilization group called the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund filed suit last month to try to stop the Florida voter eligibility effort, contending that the state had failed to get section 5 permission from the Justice Department or from a federal court.

Virginia (13 electoral votes; 2008 winner: Obama with 53 percent)
In Virginia -- yet another state rated a toss-up by NBC News -- Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a law allowing voters who show up at the polling place on Election Day without an acceptable form of ID to cast a provisional ballot and then present an approved ID up until the Friday after the election in order to have their vote counted.

He also directed the State Board of Elections to send every voter in the state a voter card before Election Day so that every registered voter has a valid ID to present at the polls.

Virginia law doesn’t require photo identification to vote. In the state, acceptable forms of voter ID include a Virginia driver’s license, a valid student identification card issued by a Virginia college or university, a copy of a current utility bill, or a paycheck that shows the name and address of the voter.

The Justice Department will issue its determination of whether the new Virginia law complies with section 5 of the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 20.

Texas (38 electoral votes; 2008 winner: McCain with 55 percent)
Like Virginia and Florida, Texas is one of the states covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Last week testimony ended in federal district court in Washington in Texas’s suit against Holder, as the state tries to get the court to approve the voter identification law which was enacted last year.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office said the Justice Department had “relied on flawed data, inaccurate information and unreliable expert conclusions” to support Holder's decision to block the Texas law.

According to one of the attorneys representing clients who seek to overturn the law, J. Gerald Hebert of the Campaign Legal Center, the three-judge panel indicated it will issue a ruling next month.  

Hebert contends that the Texas law is “a solution in search of a problem” and that the state legislature’s motivation in passing it was to suppress voting by Latinos and African-Americans.  

Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Abbott, said if the federal court denies preclearance, the state will appeal. The NBC News Political Unit rates Texas as “likely Republican.”