How state election reforms began in Lehigh Valley
Voting in Pennsylvania will be a lot different next year, just in time to elect a president. For the first time, everyone can vote by mail. And new voters can register nearly up to Election Day.
Also, voters will lose the ability to check one box and vote for either all Republicans or all
Democrats on the ballot. They now will have to vote race by race.
The reforms are the most-significant improvement to Pennsylvania elections in more than 80 years. They make it easier for people to vote and level the playing field for candidates.
What few people know is that the election overhaul started in the Lehigh Valley.
Boscola lays the foundation
State Sen. Lisa Boscola, a Democrat from Northampton County, had been trying for a long time to change how Pennsylvania holds elections.
A state lawmaker for 25 years, she’s got an independent streak. She doesn’t always fall in line with her party’s positions.
In March, Boscola introduced a bill to outlaw straight-party ticket voting. While Democratic leaders loved giving voters that option, believing it helped them at the polls, Boscola considered it “bad for our democracy.”
She believes voters should elect candidates based on their qualifications, not their political party. She also thinks independent and minor-party candidates deserve a fair chance.
She didn’t know it at the time, but her legislation would become the foundation for broader election reforms.
Action on those reforms was possible because both Republicans and Democrats wanted to help Pennsylvania counties pay for new voting systems that the state had ordered them to buy.
That order came from Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration last year. It demanded counties buy systems with voter-verifiable paper trails. Wolf didn’t immediately offer a plan to help counties pay for them.
The Republican-controlled state Legislature wasn’t involved in that decision, and some lawmakers weren’t thrilled about it. But they saw it as an opportunity.
They knew Wolf needed to find a way for the state to cover some of the counties’ costs. Lawmakers wanted that, too, but they weren’t going to sign off unless they got election changes they wanted, primarily the elimination of straight-party voting.
“There was a common desire among everybody to get money to the counties for the voting machines,” said Garth Everett, a Republican and chairman of the House State Government Committee. “When you have something that everybody agrees on and cares a lot about, it kind of makes it a little easier to be able to hang some other ornaments on the tree.”
The Legislature’s first attempt failed. In June, it passed Senate Bill 48. It authorized up to $90 million in bonds to be issued to help pay for the voting systems. The bill also eliminated straight-party ticket voting, extended the deadline for voters to return absentee ballots and gave lawmakers a chance to weigh in on future large-scale voting machine decertifications.
Wolf wouldn’t go for it. He vetoed the bill in July, saying it did not “strike the right balance to improve access to voters or security.”
He cited the elimination of straightparty voting, arguing that removing that option at a time when voters are learning to use new machines would cause confusion and longer lines at the polls, and “discourage participation.”
If at first you don’t succeed …
Still looking for voting machine money, Wolf moved ahead on his own.
Just days after his veto, he announced the state would issue $90 million in bonds, likely through a state authority. Republican lawmakers publicly challenged whether he had the power to do that without legislative approval.
Lawmakers regrouped and crafted another plan, this time with input from Wolf. They based it on Boscola’s bill.
Despite opposition from within her party, her legislation to end straightparty voting had passed a divided Senate by a 30-20 vote about two weeks earlier.
“I understand that change can be difficult. We often hear voices that tell us that the change will be devastating for this reason or that,” Boscola said on the Senate floor prior to the bill being passed.
“Perhaps the two parties will not be as influential under the system that removes the straight-party ticket option, or maybe they will become stronger … either result is OK by me.”
The bill, Senate Bill 421, was amended in several House committees to become the vehicle to also fund counties for their voting machines. By October, as House and Senate leaders negotiated with the governor, the bill grew even larger in scope, with other reforms added, too.
They included allowing people to vote by mail by requesting a mail-in ballot up to 50 days before an election; allowing absentee ballots to be returned until 8 p.m. on Election Day (instead of five days earlier); and allowing people to register to vote up until 15 days before an election (instead of 30 days).
The home stretch
House and Senate party leaders had to sell the whole package to their members, and win over the governor.
Voting machine funding remained the focal point as lawmakers talked with Wolf.
“He put the counties on the hook for a ton of money,” Corman said. “I think that was his big issue he wanted resolved.”
It was one issue, Wolf spokesman J.J. Abbott told me. But that wasn’t the only one.
A year earlier, the governor proposed modernizing elections by allowing voters to register on Election Day; automatically registering people to vote when they signed up for a driver’s license or other state services; and allowing anyone to vote by mail using “no-excuse” absentee ballots.
“The no-excuse absentee ballot voting is something that he’s been pushing for since he came into office,” Abbott said.
The mail-in ballots that were approved technically are different from absentee ballots, but they work the same way.
Everett told me mail voting took some hard selling among Republicans.
“They are convinced somehow that that is going to be used nefariously,” he said.
He tried to alleviate that fear by stressing the checks in the process. People who apply for a mail-in ballot must provide a driver’s license number or partial Social Security number so county election officials can verify they are registered to vote.
Lawmakers in both parties raised concerns about eliminating straightparty ticket voting.
“I had to convince many of my Republican colleagues in the northern tier that doing away with it wouldn’t hurt them,” Everett said.
Boscola had to continue to defend her opposition to straight-party among Democrats. She took a lot of heat. “But I held my ground,” she said.
Republican leaders were able to sell the bill to Democrats by stressing that the initial bill came from one of their own, Boscola.
“She’s always been a strong independent voice for her district,” Corman told me. “She maintained that it was the right thing to do, didn’t look at it as a Republican or Democratic issue, and looked at it as voting reform.”
What may have swayed some lawmakers was the opinion of a neutral voice.
Everett said county elections officials favored removing the straight-ticket voting choice.
“They said that is the most confusing issue that comes up in every election,” he said.
Elections officials said some voters would make a straight-ticket selection because that option was at the top of the ballot, then still try to vote for individual candidates.
Wolf had concerns that voters would need more time to vote, and lines could grow long if they couldn’t vote straightparty, Abbott said. But those concerns were alleviated with the addition of mail voting, which could reduce traffic at the polls.
With the legislative session winding down for the year, lawmakers had to swiftly hash out their differences.
“We got to a middle point where the governor was comfortable and some Democrats were comfortable and most of the Republicans were,” Corman said.
The House approved the legislation by a vote of 138-61. Because it had been amended, the bill had to be voted on again in the Senate, and passed 35-14.
Wolf signed it Oct. 31. Seated to his right during the bill ceremony was Boscola.
“This was a pretty sweeping measure,” Abbott said. “You don’t see a lot of bills that are bipartisan and can make these sort of huge advancements.”
Significant reforms aren’t easy to pull off in a politically divided government. Changing how elections are held is even harder, considering that lawmakers have a big personal stake. Any proposal that could hurt their chances of reelection, or expose their party to risk, typically doesn’t get far.
That these changes were made knowing they will go into effect during a hotly contested presidential election makes them even more impressive.
Pennsylvania officials got it done through old-fashioned compromise.
“Compromise is OK when you move Pennsylvania forward for everyone,” Boscola said.
Morning Call columnist Paul Muschick can be reached at 610-8206582 or paul.muschick@mcall.com