When it comes to voter registration and education, there is no place more critical in 2012 than the key swing state of Pennsylvania. Members of the AFT Pennsylvania (AFT-PA) are playing a big role in making sure voters are ready and able to cast ballots in the Keystone State.

In addition to a long list of their own activities, AFT-PA is participating in a “My Vote, My Right” event on Sept. 18, where the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) will join AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and members of unions, community and voting rights groups outside the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) office in downtown Pittsburgh to help people obtain voter ID cards and register to vote. Another "My Vote, My Right" event will be held in Philadelphia on Sept. 22 at the Department of Motor Vehicle office in the Oxford Levick Shopping Center at 919-B Levick St.

Sometimes support can come from the most unlikeliest of places. CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer tweeted today his father is one of the 750,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania who does not have a state-issued ID and won't be able to vote this November because of a voter ID law passed by state Republicans. 

Cramer tweeted: "I have a problem. My dad, a vet, won't be allowed to vote in Pa. because he does not drive, he is elderly, and can't prove his citizenship."

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday against the state’s voter suppression law that Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R) said “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” Some estimate could disenfranchise nearly one in 10 eligible voters—mostly people of color, students, seniors and low-income voters.

This morning in Carnegie, Pa., union activists and allies were on hand to greet Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to protest his and Mitt Romney’s plan to end Medicare as we know it and shower even more tax breaks on the wealthy and corporations, with working families footing the bill.

A small group of Pennsylvania voters who cast a ballot in 50 consecutive November elections is an elite bunch. In the state, they’re inducted into the “Voter Hall of Fame.”

However, thanks to a new Voter ID law passed by state Republicans, nearly one-fourth of these civically minded seniors do not have the proper state-issued ID to vote this November.

U.S. military veterans severely criticized Mitt Romney today for supporting laws limiting the right of residents to vote in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Republican-controlled legislatures recently enacted new voting laws. In a press conference this morning, the veterans also took Romney to task for accusing President Obama of suppressing the vote of military veterans because the Obama campaign filed a lawsuit seeking to block an Ohio law that restricts a successful early voting program.

Good jobs should be as American as apple pie, but U.S. corporations have shipped some six million American jobs overseas in the past decade. Yesterday in Pittsburgh, some 200 union members told U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that it’s time to “Bring Jobs Home.”

Hoping to talk to Sen. Toomey (R-PA) or his staff to urge support for the Bring Jobs Home Act (S. 2884), the activists from 19 unions and labor groups marched to Toomey’s home office. But even the offering of an All-American, union-made apple pie (courtesy of Food and Commercial Workers [UFCW] Local 23) couldn’t get the group in the door.

Things looked bleak for United Steelworkers Local 10-1 last September when Sunoco Inc. announced it would shut down its Philadelphia refinery if a buyer was not found.  But after a hard-fought, ten-month campaign waged by the local and international union, USW Local 10-1 members ratified a contract with a new owner, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, which is a joint partnership between The Carlyle Group and Sunoco.

Two other big corporations—including Amazon—and several state lawmakers are the latest to sever their ties with American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as the group’s influence and radical agenda—one that includes voter suppression, union-busting and immigrant bashing—is further exposed.

As the news is full of stories about the super-rich and corporate CEOs giving millions of dollars in secret donations to Mitt Romney and Karl Rove to run negative TV ads, working people have not only fought back—we're already winning.

Rep. Mark Critz was supposed to lose in the Republican gerrymandered congressional district (PA-12). The newly drawn district was two-thirds Rep. Jason Altmire’s, who had only just a month ago led all the polls from 15 to 25 percentage points.