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Reports Show Many Local Voters Lack Proper Photo I.D.

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Nearly one in five Philadelphia voters do not have the most common form of identification that will be required for casting ballots in November, according to data released by state election officials.

Philadelphia has the highest percentage of registered voters without licenses or PennDot-issued  I.D. cards, at 18 percent, but Montgomery and Delaware Counties, along with Pittsburgh and several western Pennsylvania counties, also have 10 to 12 percent of voters without a PennDot I.D.'s.

Statewide, the average is 9.2 percent of voters without the I.D.

State officials had earlier said they thought 99 percent of voters had acceptable I.D., but Ellen Kaplan of the election watchdog group The Committee of Seventy, says she was not surprised the actual figure was higher.

"There's a significant need for non-partisan education to let voters know what they need to do to go about getting one," she said.

Other acceptable forms of I.D.  include U.S. passports, current military I.D.  and student I.D.'s with expiration dates.

Voters with those were not reflected in the data released by the state.

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