Mail-in voting needs fixes, not overhaul
The future of mail-in voting continues to be debated in the Pennsylvania Legislature, where some Republicans already are proposing new restrictions or the removal of the option completely.
Meanwhile, Democrats are opposed to any efforts to pull back on its use.
Rather than ramping up another partisan political battle that is all too common in the Legislature, lawmakers should instead turn their attention to improving the current system and start by listening to those who deal with elections firsthand — county officials.
Pennsylvania’s Act 77, passed in November 2019 with the approval of the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, expanded mail-in voting to any registered voter.
Lawmakers never expected it would become so widely used. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which led many voters to reject a trip to the polls. Instead, about 2.6 million voters — more than 628,000 Republicans and 1.7 million Democrats — opted to use mail-in ballots.
If there are changes to be made — and there should be — county officials want to be involved in any discussions, which only makes sense since they are the ones charged with running the elections. They were forced to deal with the flaws in the system that came to light in the November presidential balloting.
At the top of their concerns is the time frame for processing mail ballots.
Last year, election officials could not begin the processing until 7 a.m. on Election Day. It took nearly four days before mail ballots were counted statewide, and that spurred false claims by supporters of President Donald Trump that Democrats were stealing the election.
Some Democratic lawmakers are considering proposals to give election workers seven to 14 days to pre-canvass ballots — verifying names on envelopes and removing from the envelopes the ballots in preparation for tabulation — before Election Day.
An official with the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania said the group’s election reform committee would like the Legislature to approve a three-week advance. Even if it’s only a few days or a week, that lead time is necessary to avoid the kind of long wait for final results that was seen in November.
There are other issues that need to be addressed, as well. County officials received inconsistent guidance on how to deal with matters such as verifying voter signatures, what to do with ballots that had no secrecy envelope and the proper way to secure drop boxes. One county official likened it to having 67 different sets of election rules because each county was making independent decisions.
Rather than working to improve the vote-by-mail process, some Pennsylvania lawmakers are taking to extremes. Two Republicans have proposed eliminating mail-in voting; some Democrats are suggesting the idea of conducting the entire election by mail.
County officials generally agree that universal vote-bymail should continue, and that voters should have the option of going to the polls or using a mail-in ballot.
More than a third of the votes cast in November were mail-in ballots, so there is obviously support for mail voting among the electorate.
Legislators should focus their attention on how to make mail-in voting work better, and the starting point for ideas for improvement should be the county election officials.
Legislators should be seeking input from county election officials to identify and correct flaws in the voting process.