PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The latest effort at election reform in the Pennsylvania House could be up for a final vote as early as mid-December.
The legislation, called the Pennsylvania Voting Rights Protection Act 2.0, is along the same lines but has some changes compared to the election reform bill that Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed earlier this year, prompting House Republican leaders to express optimism in its future.
The bill would give counties more time to pre-canvass mail-in ballots, meaning ballots would be prepped so they’re ready to be counted on Election Day.
One amendment to the bill comes from Montgomery County Republican Tracy Pennycuick, which would set deadlines for when those ballots have to be counted. She said it’s necessary, especially after recent elections.
“Results were so late to come in,” she said. “Even the day after the election, there were still thousands of ballots to be counted.”
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Opponents to the amendment, like Northampton County Democrat Robert Freeman, argued arbitrary deadlines would only increase the chance for error and feed into conspiracy theories of mistaken counts.
However, bill sponsor Seth Grove (R-York County) said the timelines they put in the bill are based on conversations with Philadelphia elections officials.
“If Philadelphia can count their votes — the millions of votes they had by Election Day — every other county in this commonwealth should do similar things,” he said.
“We had cases in this last election where candidates went to bed thinking they actually won. Unbeknownst to them, uncounted ballots came in to change elections.”
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While that amendment passed, a sweeping amendment from Philadelphia Democrat Joanna McClinton failed. It would have set minimums for drop-off boxes, changed registration deadlines and allowed early voting sooner than the current bill.
Wolf has said repeatedly he will veto any legislation that puts what he calls unnecessary restrictions on voting.