Keystone Today

The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania General Assembly hopes to submit election reform legislation by the end of June.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives State Government Committee recently released a 99-page report summarizing its recommendations on potential election reforms to improve election integrity after four months of deliberating.

According to Majority Chairman Seth Grove (R-York), the recent hearings revealed many inadequacies necessitating extensive legislative reforms in order to address systemic issues.

“Elections must be held to the highest integrity while also being accessible to all legal voters,” Grove said in his report. “House Republicans stand ready to improve our antiquated election laws."

Republican lawmakers have refuted allegations of voter suppression, arguing their goal was to "make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat."

“To restore the faith of all Pennsylvania voters, we would expect everyone would want to be at the negotiating table as we create a fair and equitable bill,” Grove said. "House Republicans stand ready to improve our antiquated election laws and aid local election officials."

During the conclusion of the hearings, Democratic State Government Committee Chair Margo Davidson of Delaware argued that the hearings were "a deep mockery of the hardworking election officials that carried out and executed our elections across all 67 counties."

Grove answered, "It is unfortunate some of my Democratic colleagues ended our successful hearings with political theatrics, instead of highlighting the several hours of testimony from numerous nonpartisan testifiers about various legislative changes we must make to ensure we have an election process which works for our voters and election officials."

According to The Center Square, a majority of the proposals from the Representatives State Government Committee aim to strengthen the absentee ballot process. These proposals come in the wake of a record 2.6 million absentee ballots cast in Pennsylvania's 2020 election, which overwhelmed state election officials and delayed final results by more than a week.

Democratic challenger Joe Biden carried the Pennsylvania presidential balloting by about 80,000 votes.

Several other potential improvements have also been proposed by lawmakers, including a prohibition on using private funds to oversee elections, which was a big topic in 2020 when $18 million was poured into the Pennsylvania voting system.