Elections

“It’s really important to look for accurate information. I’ve never seen this level of misinformation,” as she saw in the November election, urging the public, not to “give in to partisan divide or conspiracy theories.”

Mogil, Webster and Boockvar all emphasized that the two top federal officials with jurisdiction on the matter said there was no credible evidence of large-scale voter fraud in the election.

Boockvar also noted that more than 60 lawsuits challenged Pennsylvania election procedures and most were thrown out as baseless by “mostly Republican judges, some of whom were appointed by President Trump.”

Given the number of changes in motion — new voting machines that created a paper trail; new voting rules that allowed mail-in voting, a pandemic which changed the dates and the procedures for the primary election — mistakes were made in the primary, Boockvar said.

But officials learned from this mistakes and

there was “a huge improvement” between the primary and general election, she said.

Given the controversy surrounding Pennsylvania’s elections — some Republican state legislators asked members of Congress

to invalidate Pennsylvania’s election results, even when they themselves had been elected in the same elections — it seems likely the General Assembly will take the matter up again in the coming year.

Boockvar and Mogil said they would like to see access to voting opened up even more, such as automatic voter registration when a driver’s license is obtained, or an address changed on a license.

Both also supported expanding auditing of election

results, to give the public greater confidences in the results.

Mogil also called for an end to gerrymandering.

“We are the only democracy in the world where we let politicians draw maps of where they will represent,” she said.

She also advocated for “open primaries,” which would give access 2 million unaffiliated voters who cannot participate in primary elections.

Mogil and Webster also made a pitch for opposing House Bill 38, which calls for an amendment to the Pennsylvania constitution creating “districts” from which state-wide judges will be elected.

If approved, “judges would be like politicians, answering to constituents

in different regions. We want to make sure this not on ballot,” Mogil said, with Webster adding “it is a no good, very bad bill.”

“We are at a crossroads, where we can lead

and every Pennsylvanian knows their vote will be counted accurately, or we can serve goals of foreign adversaries. Russia, Iran and China, laughing at our own elected officials doing what those nations

want,” said Boockvar.

“They want to see us subverted into violence and distrust of American election systems,” she said. “Call your elected officials and tell them ‘enough with the lies.’”

“We are at a crossroads, where we can lead and every Pennsylvanian knows their vote will be counted accurately, or we can serve goals of foreign adversaries. Russia, Iran and China, laughing at our own elected officials doing what those nations want.”

— Kathy Boockvar, PA Secretary of State