Keystone Today

The Delaware Valley Journal (DVJ) reports that Delaware County recently sent hundreds of ballots to the wrong addresses and the wrong voters.

The report said Howard Gartland, chairman of the Republican Party in Radnor, received complaints from voters who requested mail ballots that contained a return envelope with someone else’s name and address on it.

“We almost certainly have people voting for other people,” Gartland told the DVJ.

The article was one of a series of new reports of complications surrounding Pennsylvania election procedures cited by state Rep. Seth Grove (R-York) in a series of tweets. Grove remarked that voters would have a less complicated voting experience if Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, had not vetoed his sweeping election reform legislation (House Bill 1300) in June.

Grove noted that House Bill 1800, an updated version of HB 1300 currently under discussion in the General Assembly, would allow for curbside voting, have voters wait no more than 30 minutes in line, and allow those 65 and older to move to the front of voting lines. The legislation also would require that drop boxes for mail votes be more secure and uniformly placed.

“The drop boxes were created in 2020 by bureaucrats in Harrisburg and are not found in law,” Grove said in a statement. “Some counties abused this, using private funding to have multiple drop boxes when some counties only had one. It was the Wild, Wild West out there. Voters in different counties should not be treated differently from voters in another.”

The private funding Grove referenced stems from reports that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through nonprofits that granted local elections officials funding – grants that favored Democratic regions over Republican ones – in exchange for following a set of election guidelines, including the use of drop boxes.

A recent report said Wolf’s office was involved in the favoring of Democratic counties over Republican ones for the private grants.

“This latest report indicates the administration and the Pennsylvania Department of State played favorites when they connected certain counties to large sums of grant funding while ignoring other counties,” Grove told The Center Square. “Not only did this create unequal access to voters but it also essentially disenfranchised voters in counties that did not receive equal funding.”

The House State Government Committee, which Grove chairs, approved HB 1800 in late September. It currently awaits action in the full House.