State Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), the prime sponsor of sweeping election legislation (House Bill 1300), said that an illegal vote cast by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, would have been legal had the governor not vetoed HB 1300 back in June.
“On Nov. 2, Gov. Wolf did an interview with KDKA where he disclosed his wife turned in his mail-in ballot for him,” Grove wrote on his Twitter account. “This is illegal under the election code, but would have been legal had he signed HB 1300.”
State election law prohibits all but those with disabilities or emergencies from giving their mail ballot to someone else to take to an elections office or drop box. A section of the vetoed legislation regulating locations and availability of drop boxes would have allowed a family member to drop off a mail ballot after an elections inspector checked that the ballot was complete.
Spotlight PA reported that “KDKA Radio Morning Show” host Kevin Battle asked Wolf if he visited the polls to vote in person during Tuesday’s municipal election.
“I didn’t show up in person at the polls. We voted a couple weeks ago, actually,” Wolf said. “My wife actually dropped it off personally two weeks ago, so it’s there.”
Wolf did not say where his wife dropped off his ballot. Elizabeth Rementer, a spokeswoman for Wolf, told Spotlight PA “it was an honest mistake.”
Wolf vetoed HB 1300 saying that provisions in it, including a section require voter ID for in-person voting, would suppress voter participation, especially among minority voters. A month later he reversed his position on voter ID in a Philadelphia Inquirer interview.
In September, Grove introduced House Bill 1800, an updated version of HB 1300. It was quickly approved by the State Government Committee and currently awaits action on the House floor.
In other election news, Grove criticized a lawsuit filed by the Democratic commissioners of Montgomery County to enact changes in the state’s voting laws. The changes sought by the commissioners, Grove said, were in HB 1300.
The legislation “included significant changes to increase access to legal voters, ensure election integrity for all election process and modernize our election laws,” Grove said in a statement. “Instead of advocating for its passage, the Montgomery County commissioners sat on their hands and allowed Gov. Tom Wolf to veto this important legislation to help counties administer elections.”
Much of the Republican push for election law changes in Pennsylvania stemmed from former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that he lost the Keystone State to Joe Biden in 2020 due to voter fraud. Trump, who had carried Pennsylvania in 2016, lost the state by about 80,000 votes.
