Parties must work on voter confidence
16,000 botched mail-in votes in Lancaster County could determine the outcome of the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Now, imagine a similar scenario playing out in a Pennsylvania county in the 2024 presidential election. It could lead to a constitutional crisis.
“Election integrity” may have become a Republican talking point, but it’s responding to two genuine realities: Regular snafus in the collecting and counting of votes, such as the Lancaster mess, and understandable unease among voters about the competent administration of elections. Yes, some people prattle about “election integrity” in a cynical bid to undermine results they don’t like, and disappointed candidates try to console themselves by claiming the other side stole the election.
But there are also many, many voters who are innocently concerned for America’s democratic institutions. They look at major mistakes like Lancaster’s and worry: “Can we trust this process? Does it matter if I vote?” Not because they’re conspiracy theorists or wannabe insurrectionists, but because these are reasonable questions to ask.
Some try to dismiss these citizens as anti-democratic cranks, but this is counterproductive. It denies the observable reality of election mistakes, and only increases suspicion as people wonder why their honest concern is treated with derision. Screaming “nothing to see here!” always attracts more attention than it distracts.
In Lancaster, a coding error made by the county’s mail-in ballot vendor (NPC Inc., of Blair County) rendered 16,000 ballots unreadable by scanners. Now county officials have to painstakingly fill in new ballots based on the originals, then scan them. This is, incredibly, the second time in two years — with different vendors! — the county has had to do this. The process is moving forward with professionalism. Three people are involved with each ballot: One who reads the original, one who marks the replacement and one who watches to make sure they got it right. Representatives for GOP Senate front-runners Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick, who are currently separated by fewer than 1,500 votes statewide, are circulating. We have every reason to believe the count will be accurate.
But the stakes are very high — too high for snafus that introduce more friction than absolutely necessary into the process. Imagine, again, the global implications of a presidential election falling on one county whose mail-in ballot vendor botches a line of code.
Pennsylvania’s Republicans and Democrats need to drop the dueling platitudes and come together to give voters confidence in their elections. They must prioritize making democracy work — and be seen to work — over partisan advantage.
If the state’s going to stick with mailin voting, Democrats must work to ensure debacles like Lancaster simply do not happen. If the state’s going to pull back from mail-in voting, Republicans need to offer alternative ways to ensure access to those who can’t get to the polls.
If the parties can’t come together to address this fundamental crisis of confidence, they will drive us closer and closer to a crisis of constitutional legitimacy.