Transparency requires answers on state error

No more details are forthcoming about how the Department of State failed to advertise a proposed constitutional amendment.

As Spotlight PA pointed out this week, the Wolf administration has declined to provide additional details about how the Pennsylvania Department of State — which oversees elections — recently failed to advertise a proposed constitutional amendment in keeping with state law.

As that nonpartisan newsroom noted, “The error prevents the question from appearing on the ballot in May.”

This appalling mistake “devastated clergy sexual abuse survivors and others who are time-barred from bringing litigation under the statute of limitations,” Spotlight PA reported, “and led to the swift resignation of the agency’s top official, Kathy Boockvar.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of State told Spotlight PA that the agency had an “established practice,” but no “formal process for managing the advertising of constitutional amendments due to their relative infrequency.”

Wolf has described the mistake as “human error.” The agency, he said, would “immediately institute new controls, including additional tracking and notifications of constitutional amendments, to ensure similar failings do not occur in the future.”

Those changes are clearly necessary, but as Spotlight PA noted, the Wolf administration has refused to explain exactly how the mistake happened, “who else was responsible for the error, and whether any other disciplinary action or terminations had resulted.”

This is not the transparency that Wolf promised when he ran for governor.

It is not the kind of conduct that engenders trust.

We appreciated Boockvar accepting responsibility for the mistake — as we’re seeing in the impeachment trial in Washington, D.C., there’s a notable lack of such accountability among public officials these days — but her resignation didn’t end the matter.

Wolf has asked the Office of State Inspector General to investigate the mistake. “Inspector general reports are not released to the public, unless the governor directs them to be,” Spotlight PA noted.

The governor needs to make good on his repeated pledges of transparency and make the report public.