There’s a reason why Little League and other youth sports organizations require players to show a birth certificate proving their age. There’s a reason why hospitals now require patients to show photo identification. There’s a reason why individuals, companies and other organizations spend billions of dollars on identity theft protection.

The reason is to prevent cheating.

It’s the same reason why Pennsylvania legislators passed a law in 2012 requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls.

The reason is the prevention of cheating — the prevention of voter fraud.

When a Commonwealth Court judge issued a ruling Friday striking down that law, it wasn’t because of the law’s intent. Judge Bernard McGinley’s 103-page ruling concluded the law created unreasonable obstacles for hundreds of thousands of voters, many of them elderly, disabled or poor.

Most of us already possess a valid photo ID — a driver’s license. But licenses are issued for the privilege of driving, and those who don’t drive, and don’t have a license, still have the absolute right to vote — voting is not a privilege, but a right.

McGinley drew on this important distinctinction in his decision. He touched on another distinction when he wrote that the law did not violate the state’s equal protection provision — a distinction that does not reject outright the concept of a voter identification requirement.

In other words, the issue is not the concept of voter ID requirements; but rather, the inconvenience some voters face in acquiring the ID.

There already are obstacles to voting, the most notable of which is registration. Independent and third-party voters would contend the two-party system presents unnecessary obstacles to them and their candidates. But the vast majority of us consider these obstacles necessary to the operation of fair and efficient elections. Voter identification should fall into this same category of necessary obstacles.

Most political observers predict the Pennsylvania voter ID law will be appealed to the state Supreme Court, where justices will either uphold or overturn McGinley’s decision; or, a possible third and just as likely alternative, the court could issue a ruling that fixes the law or gives instructions on how it should be fixed, according to a news story on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website philly.com.

While 23 other states have adopted voter identification requirements over the past decade, any ruling involving Pennsylvania’s law applies only to Pennsylvania and the state’s constitution — this is not a federal case. It will not directly affect voter ID laws in other states. However, other states are watching intently in anticipation of similar challenges to their voter ID laws.

The idea of a voter identification requirement to prevent election fraud is not unreasonable. Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration should proceed with an appeal of Judge McGinley’s ruling; if an appeal is upheld, then the Legislature should modify the law to make it compliant with the Pennsylvania constitution.