Keystone Today

Newly sworn-in state lawmakers will have a fresh set of election reform recommendations waiting for them Jan. 3.

The Joint State Government Commission, a bipartisan research arm of the General Assembly, is on schedule to release its recommendations next week, Yvonne Hursh, Counsel for the Commission, told Keystone Today in an email. Hursh said that it would be inappropriate to comment on the specifics of the report until it is released, but she did say that members of the Commission’s Pennsylvania Election Advisory Board have raised “concerns that if the ambiguities and conflicts regarding mail-in ballots are not resolved soon, that an exodus of election workers could occur, primarily out of frustration with sometimes conflicting directives and public hostility to perceived irregularities.”

"While comments were made last week [at an advisory meeting] that emphasized that concern, the report is not solely focused on that issue, but rather making sure Pennsylvania's elections are fair and transparent and that voters can have full confidence in the integrity of our elections," she added.

The Center Square reported that the recommendations will include two separate voter registration dates - one for mail-in voting and another for in-person voting, due to concerns over delays coming from the postal service - members of the board said during the meeting late last week.  

The report will also recommend laws regulating mail-in ballot drop boxes and security, along with voter notifications and requirements surrounding undated mail-in ballots.

At the meeting, Board Vice Chair Joe Kantz, a Snyder County commissioner, said that it was urgent to get the recommendations out and legislation through the General Assembly because of the fear of losing election workers.

“More and more every day I see the stress and scrutiny on election workers,” Kantz said. “It’s getting more and more difficult to keep and gain those workers. I fear in the very near future we are nearing a critical time in in history that if we don’t these issues fixed now we are going to have a serious problem with our elections moving forward. We’ve got to use common sense to approach legislation that is dealing with elections and figure out a way to make things happen.”

Proposed election reform legislation incorporating at least some of the Commission’s recommendations will almost certainly be introduced soon after the new session begins.

State Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), one of the General Assembly’s leading election reform advocates, told Keystone Today that he will be back with changes, including voter ID, in the new session. One of his election reform bills that contained voter ID, HB 1300, was vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, in June 2021.

Grove believes he will work better with Governor-elect Josh Shapiro, a Democrat -- who has indicated support for voter ID, but the House faces political complications that could delay any action on legislation.

On Nov. 8, Republicans lost a commanding majority in the House; the Democrats won 102 seats in the 203-member chamber, which technically gives them control.

But one of the winners for the Democrats, state Rep. Tony DeLuca (D-Allegheny), died a month before Election Day. Two other Democrats won races for Congress and lieutenant governor.

Last Friday, House Republicans filed a suit in Commonwealth Court to block three special elections scheduled to take place in February to fill the seats. If successful, the Republican could at least delay a Democratic Majority in the House.

For Grove, who will chair the House Appropriations Committee in the new session, one of the biggest problems with the election system in Pennsylvania is a patchwork of procedures across the state’s 67 counties.

“We still have a patchwork of procedures in the counties when they should all be operating under the same user manual set down in legislation,” he told Keystone Today for an earlier story. “The problem is we have a governor who doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with the system.”

Another lingering controversy that would have been settled under Grove’s legislation involves drop boxes for mail ballots. Chester County is one of the few counties that acted on the boxes and got it right, Grove said before the Nov. 8 election. There, Court of Common Pleas Judge William Mahon oversaw a case where the County Board of Elections agreed in mid-October that the boxes must be manned, have video surveillance and specified hours of availability, not available 24/7. Similar regulations are contained in HB 1300, and later version of election reform, HB 1800.

“However, it is frustrating more counties don’t have these measures in place,” Grove said in statement reacting to the procedural decision in Chester County. “They very well could, but Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the Voting Rights Protection Act (HB 1300), which included drop box policies now being put into effect in Chester County. If he hadn’t wielded his veto pen, all voters across Pennsylvanian would have the same safety measures afforded to only Chester County voters.”