HARRISBURG, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill that would change the date of next spring’s presidential primary election, in order to avoid a conflict with Passover. However, state Senate leadership says it’s too late and they won’t take up the measure.
This bill came to the House after the Senate passed it last month. It would have moved the primary to March 19, but has been amended multiple times in the House, even failing miserably in a previous floor vote 26-177. The bill currently targets April 16 as the new primary date.
It’s the latest in several attempts to change that date, despite county election officials repeatedly saying it’s too late to do so.
“I kind of feel like somebody on ‘The Walking Dead’ here,” said Republican state Rep. Russ Diamond, “because this zombie bill keeps coming back, gutted and replaced. And I keep getting up and trying to stab it dead.”
House Republicans say counties would have to relocate polling places and reschedule poll workers, while also handling next month’s municipal election. “This is poor planning and failed leadership,” said Republican state Rep. Seth Grove.
But Democratic state Rep. Dan Miller, of Western Pennsylvania, says holding an election during Passover isn’t just disrespectful of voters, it also affects poll workers. “We have wide sections both in Pittsburgh and across the state where scheduling an election on a holiday of this importance makes it almost impossible to do,” he said.
The House passed a different bill earlier this month to move the primary to April 2, but the Senate never took it up. Miller, the House Democratic whip, says several bills give the Senate a number of options to avoid Passover:
“Hopefully, they will look at that and still find a way to respectfully offer our elections,” he said.
The amended bill has to go back to the state Senate for concurrence. Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican, says any conversations on moving the primary date have come to an end, calling the House votes “half-hearted” and “too little, too late.”