In defeat, Mastriano can help election reform
His prayers unanswered, Republican Doug Mastriano finally conceded on Sunday night that he lost Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial election.
Trailing by an insurmountable margin with most of the votes tallied, it shouldn’t have taken him five days to acknowledge defeat. Mastriano’s 14-point trouncing was the worst in a gubernatorial election without an incumbent since 1946.
In the much closer U.S. Senate race, Republican Mehmet Oz had thrown in the towel the morning after Election Day, calling victorious Democrat John Fetterman to wish him luck.
But at least Mastriano bowed out graciously.
Considering his history of believing Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering if Mastriano would spin a new election fraud conspiracy.
He didn’t, and he said all the right things in his concession statement.
“Difficult to accept as the results are, there is no right course but to concede, which I do, and I look to the challenges ahead,” said Mastriano, a state senator from Franklin County. “Josh Shapiro will be our next governor, and I ask everyone to give him the opportunity to lead and pray that he leads well.”
He pledged to work with Shapiro, the Democratic attorney general, on at least one issue, election reform. He said that is sorely needed in Pennsylvania. He’s right about that. I hope Shapiro and the rest of the Legislature agree, too.
Here’s what Mastriano wrote in his statement late Sunday night:
“Pennsylvania is in great need of election reform. As I write this, the final results of the 2022 Mid-term Elections are still not available. We can and must do better to make our elections more transparent, secure, and more quickly decided. Pennsylvanians deserve to have faith in our elections. In my role as a State Senator, I will do my very best to help Josh Shapiro deliver that to Pennsylvanians and, if he does, I will be the first to acknowledge and applaud his achievement.”
Mastriano can start by introducing legislation — clean legislation — to allow county elections offices to start processing mail ballots before Election Day.
That would help votes get counted more quickly so unofficial results would be available sooner. Many other states do that without problems, but our Republican-controlled state Legislature stubbornly has resisted.
They’ve proposed it, but only as part of mega election-related bills that include controversial changes such as requiring voter identification. So those bills have failed.
It’s time to address election reform one piece at a time. First, let mail ballots be opened and processed before Election Day.
Then require all voters to show identification at every election. That change is necessary, too.
It would go a long way toward reducing unfounded claims of voter fraud. And if county elections offices provide an acceptable ID card to every voter, as lawmakers have proposed, there could be no claims that voters would be disenfranchised because they don’t have a driver’s license or other photo ID.
Fun election news
Not all elections have to be antagonistic and stressful. Here’s some lighter voting news that I hope elicits some smiles and fond memories.
The winners were announced last week for the National Toy Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022.
I wrote about the nominees in September, noting how some had rekindled great memories from my childhood. I promised to share the results of the voting when they were announced, and they were unveiled Thursday during a ceremony at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
The winners were the top, Masters of the Universe and LiteBrite.
They were selected from a field of a dozen nominees that also included bingo, Breyer Horses, Catan, Nerf, piñata, Phase 10, Pound Puppies, Rack-O and Spirograph.