Keystone Today

The ink has not been given a chance to dry from the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear a case challenging mail-in voting in Pennsylvania but the state has begun to take steps to review the process for improvements.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly’s (R-Pa.) lawsuit was the final one linked to the 2020 presidential election. Even as the legal challenges were taking place, the state had developed a bipartisan board to tackle a partisan issue, WPXI reported. The mission of the 23-member board is to examine state voting laws to find what improvements can be made. 

Any recommendations made by the board must be approved by the state General Assembly. It would then need to be signed into law by the governor. The next meeting is in April.

Among those sitting on the panel are Lawrence County Commissioner Dan Vogler, a Republican, and Allegheny County Solicitor Andy Szefi. 

“Take away some of the burden on our elections staff, but continue to make it easy for folks, as easy as possible for folks to vote,” Vogler told WPXI. “I saw no indication so far of any partisan divide. I get the impression that this group does want to look at this issue in an unbiased way.”

Szefi is supporting a pre-canvassing of mail-in ballots, plus more time between between elections and time to register.

“When you conduct the largest turnout election in Pennsylvania history amid a COVID-19 pandemic, amid a very polarizing atmosphere with one party voting one way and the other party voting the other way, we had a perfect storm of factors that led to it,” Szefi said, according to WPXI. “If you’re a voter and you waited until that last one-week deadline, that presents a real challenge to get that ballot back in. We would like to see that deadline extended further out from the election.”

Pennsylvania went to Joe Biden during the election by about 80,000 votes and emotions remain high. The Republican Party recently sent out a fundraising brochure that alleges state election laws were changed to hurt former President Donald Trump. Expanded mail-in voting was passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly in 2019 before being signed by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.