From the main site:

HARRISBURG -- Closing arguments concluded this afternoon in the lawsuit seeking to halt the new voter ID requirement, setting the case up for a timeline the judge said should allow a final decision before the November elections.

Much of the six days of testimony in the Commonwealth Court were occupied with questioning by the groups challenging the law, as they presented people who they said might be prevented from voting and experts who testified that many people lack acceptable identification and that voter fraud is extremely rare. In his closing argument, Witold Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said the state has shown no interest justifying a law that he said could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people.

He argued the law puts an uneven burden on different groups of people, drawing upon testimony from individuals and data from a survey commissioned of Pennsylvania residents to conclude that people who are poor, uneducated, Hispanic, female, and elderly are less likely than others to have identification meeting the requirements of the law.

When faced with a witness who lacks the documents needed to obtain state identification, attorneys for the state have asked questions designed to show the person could still get a new form of identification, which is still under development. Mr. Walczak contended in his closing argument that the state cannot guarantee it will reach all voters with the new ID.

"The Department of State ID is not a magic bullet," he said. "The details are unclear, the release is uncertain, and it doesn't mean anyone can automatically walk in and get it."

In his closing defense of the law, Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Cawley said that each of the witnesses who spoke about their lack of documents has the information needed to receive an ID from the Department of State. He said the requirements of the law apply equally to all people and that the rigor of going to a Department of Transportation licensing center to obtain an ID is no greater than that of going to the polls to vote.

"The petitioners may make an emotional appeal that may play well to the cameras and those unschooled in the law, but Pennsylvania law does not support their request for injunction," he said.

Mr. Cawley also argued that halting implementation of the voter ID law would cause confusion and waste the resources of the state and other groups working to educate voters.

Judge Robert Simpson said he plans to render a decision in the week beginning Aug. 13, leaving enough time, he said, for Supreme Court appeals before the November elections.

The liberal group MoveOn is running an TV ad in Pittsburgh and two other swing-state cities tied to the Romney family's horse, which is competing in the Olympics tonight. In Mr. Ed style the horse talks about the Romneys spending $77,000 annually on its care and finishes with: "After Mitt Romney repeals health care and ships your job overseas, I dare say your life will not be nearly as pampered as mine."

MoveOn says the ad will run on broadcast and cable between 8 p.m. and midnight in Pgh, Cincinnati and Las Vegas. We don't know the amount of the buy but someday soon, thanks to the FCC, that kind of thing will be much easier to track.

To the consternation of the broadcast media biz, the FCC started requiring stations in Pittsburgh and the other top 50 media markets to start posting its political media buys online. The info in the so-called "public file" has always been public information but stored only on-site in TV station offices. The FCC site, which is already live, currently only covers ad buys made today and in the future so ad buys like that from MoveOn (or the Tom Smith re-up we mentioned Tuesday) won't be reflected.

A National Association of Broadcasters appeal for an emergency stay was tossed last week.

The Sunlight Foundation has an overview of the FCC requirements and the new online files here.

What is it with Pittsburgh and hotel rooms?

The city was back in the news yesterday in criticism from Republican John McCain over Obama administration national security leaks. From a floor speech quoted by Politico, regarding stories by the NYT's David Sanger:

"According to ... Sanger, 'a senior official in the National Security Council' tapped him on the shoulder and brought him to the presidential suite in the Pittsburgh hotel where President Obama was staying, and where 'most of the rest of the national security staff was present.' There, the journalist was apparently allowed to review satellite images and other 'evidence' that confirmed the existence of a secret nuclear site in Iran," McCain said. "I wonder how many people have the key to the presidential suite in a Pittsburgh, Pa. hotel. You might want to start there."

The meetup happened during the G-20 in September 2009 and was pretty well-noted at the time (Politico did a story about the episode) and Sanger has more in an email to Politico:

Sanger e-mails: "As I described in 'Confront and Conceal,'' during the summits in New York and Pittsburgh in 2009, I received a call from a diplomat in Europe who told me that the Iranians had gotten wind of the fact that their secret new facility near Qum had been discovered and rushed a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency. While vaguely worded, the letter admitted they were building a previously-undisclosed enrichment plant. I began to make calls to administration officials, who initially told me they would not discuss the subject. When it became clear to them that I was writing the story anyway, and that it would pre-empt the President's planned announcement, they decided to brief me. I posted the news on the Times website, because the last editions of the paper had already completed their run.

President Obama, of course, announced the discovery of the faciility the next morning, and several administration officials held a large briefing for the traveling press corps. Clearly, whatever they announced so publicly that day had been declassified somewhere along the line.''

Closing arguments are due this morning in the legal challenge of the state's Voter ID law. The ACLU's Vic Walczak previews his argument that the state should suspend the law -- partially there was no evidence presented of election day fraud, and therefore the state would not be harmed by an injunction -- above.

Karen Langley gets into more of those arguments in her story on the last day of evidence in the Commonwealth Court trial. In Philly, they're expecting "a mess on election day," a city official testified.

And if you haven't already check out the stuff Dave Weigel at Slate has been doing on the trial. Sample on the testimony of that official, Jorge Santana:

The ACLU's deputy director for Pa, Barb Feige, sent us a letter yesterday on our story on prominent Pittsburghers on the no-ID rolls and the interactive feature allowing Allegheny County residents to see if they're on the no-ID list. Even if that feature tells voters they're in the clear, they may not be. She writes:

To be absolutely certain that one has acceptable ID, voters should do the following:

•       Check the list of IDs that will be accepted and make sure you have one
• Make sure that the ID has an expiration date ( PennDOT IDs can be expired up to one year.)
• Make sure that the name on your ID closely matches the name on your registration (a problem for many women who changed their names when they got married)
•      Make sure that the photo on that ID matches your current appearance (mainly a concern for transgender voters).

And Chris Potter at Pittsburgh City Paper continues to do his great work on the issue. Check out the diagram below for more discussion on the state's stipulation on fraud evidence (click to go directly to CP site, and go to the last page):