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Survey: Thousands of College Students May Be Disenfranchised by Pa. ID Law

By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Pennsylvania's controversial new voter ID law has produced attempts to overturn it and attempts to comply with it.

A new survey on that second front finds that colleges are doing a lot better at making sure students face no surprises this November at the polls.

The survey from PennPIRG -- the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group -- finds that the vast majority of the state's responding colleges now have student IDs that meet the requirements for the voter ID law, including a photo and an expiration date.

That's the good news, says PennPIRG's Angela Lee (at right in photo).

"The bad news," she says, "is that many students still need to jump through hoops in order to acquire these IDs. And the ugly news is, the burdensome requirements of this law may still cause over 28,500 students to lose their voting rights this election year."

Fifteen colleges said they had no plans for compliant IDs.   Delaware Valley College senior Shelby Rolla, from Virginia, got a passport to use to vote but says the school could have made it a lot easier.

"Protecting student voting rights is as easy as distributing expiration date stickers" for their student IDs, she said today.

Delaware Valley College officials says no students asked for voting compliant IDs and they are not planned for this year.

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