Argall rips state for skipping election reform hearing

Counties tell of need for funds to handle elections

With a busy election year well underway, Schuylkill County Sen. David Argall on Tuesday ripped the Wolf administration for skipping a bipartisan election reform hearing where counties bluntly stated a need for more election funding.

Argall, a Republican who also represents part of Berks County, said the Democratic administration’s absence was not a case of “government that works” but a case of “government that doesn’t even show up.”

At the Senate State Government Committee hearing in Harrisburg chaired by Argall, Bradford County Commissioner Daryl Miller said burdens placed on counties by a sweeping 2019 election reform law mean the current state of affairs is not sustainable.

That law vastly expanded mail-in voting and — coupled with the pandemic — made the 2020 election unlike any that had preceded it. Nearly 38% of the 6,915,283 votes cast in the presidential election were mailed.

Miller, president of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania board, said it was like holding an entirely separate election without any extra money.

In some cases, he said, costs for counties more than doubled.

Since then, he said, onethird of counties have seen their election managers or top election staff resign.

On Feb. 3, the Berks County commissioners appointed Paige Riegner to serve as the director of the Office of Elections Services. Longtime elections director Deborah Olivieri left the job a few weeks before the November 2020 election, and her replacement, Ronald Rutkowski, resigned in September after serving in that role for only about 10 months.

Miller said making more changes without giving counties more money “will only set us up for failure.”

The hearing included testifiers from Michigan, Florida, Washington, D.C., and various Pennsylvania counties. It was intended to gather information on additional reforms.

Argall said the Department of State took a week to say no to the committee’s Feb. 7 invitation to testify at the hearing.

Acting Secretary Leigh Chapman is the fifth person to head the department under Wolf.

“This is the Senate committee which begins the confirmation process for any secretary of the commonwealth and yet here we are, more than 50 days into her tenure, we have never even met. Not even a phone call,” Argall said. “I believe it is far past time for the department in charge of Pennsylvania’s elections to engage in these conversations instead of avoiding them like the plague.”

State Department officials were not immediately available to offer a response to Argall’s comments, which came at the end of the hearing.

Elections for Pennsylvania governor, U.S. Senate and the vast majority of legislative seats are among those scheduled for 2022. Much uncertainty already has been produced by a once-a-decade redistricting process that was slow to start because of delayed U.S. Census data.

County needs

Sherene Hess, an Indiana County commissioner, said Pennsylvania counties’ top reform wishes are more time to pre-canvass mail-in and absentee ballots, and setting an earlier deadline to request absentee ballots.

County election workers must wait until Election Day to pre-canvass — or process and count — mailin and absentee ballots.

Matthew Weil, of the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center, said states should give election administrators at least seven days to pre-canvass.

But he said the center approved of a three-day window proposed in a Pennsylvania bill offered by Argall and Philadelphia Sen. Sharif Street, the top Democrat on the committee.

Weil said the move alone would drastically improve the running of Pennsylvania elections.

The deadline for applications for absentee ballots is seven days before the election. County commissioners have proposed setting it at 15 days.

An analyst from the Bipartisan Policy Center, Rachel Orey, said it appeared Pennsylvania lawmakers had time to deal with precanvassing and election funding issues before the November 2022 elections.

Then, she said, more extensive reforms could be undertaken in 2023.