Keystone Today

Pennsylvania House Republicans are poised to introduce sweeping election reform legislation to correct what one leading House member characterized as the “really bad law” guiding the state’s elections.

State Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), chairman of the House State Government Committee, told Keystone Today that the bill will be ready to go as soon as legislative leadership calls for it sometime in June. It will cover everything from verification of mail-in ballots to whether to allow election officials to accept private money for the administration of elections -- a major concern after the infusion of hundreds of millions in private dollars in battleground states running up to the November 2020 general election.

“It’s going to be heavy on internal control and integrity,” said Grove, whose committee held four months of hearings, in part, to review the security of many of the voting practices issued during the pandemic.

Grove said that in addition to other reforms, the legislation will call for ID for in-person voting, tighter verification for mail-in ballots, removing audit authority from the local governments managing the elections to an independent party, and requiring that any private funds accepted by local election officials be disbursed equally on a per capita basis.

The private money provision stems from the funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars of Facebook founder’s Mark Zuckerberg’s money through third-party nonprofits into the administration of elections. The purpose the groups argued, the Center for Tech and Civic Life among them, was to ensure safe and secure elections during the pandemic, but it’s been criticized as a veiled get-out-the vote effort for the Democratic Party. An estimated $18 million in private money was spent in Pennsylvania.

“Our point is if you’re going to take the money, distribute it fairly to all voters, and not spend 50 cents per voter in Republican areas and $10 per voter in Democratic ones,” Grove said.

With strong majorities in the House and Senate, the Republicans are likely send an election reform bill to Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, by the end of June, which is also the deadline for passage of a state spending plan.

But a spokesman for the governor earlier said that Wolf would not agree to a law requiring a voter ID even though the vast majority of states require ID for in-person voting. It’s unclear where Wolf stands on the other proposed changes in the law.