Voter Data-Sharing System Issues Dominate Schmidt’s Pennsylvania Senate Confirmation Hearing

At Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt’s initial confirmation hearing on Wednesday, many senators inquired about the commonwealth’s participation in a controversial voter data-sharing program. 

Schmidt, a moderate Republican former Philadelphia city commissioner who subsequently was president of the left-leaning nonprofit Committee of Seventy, will sit for a second hearing covering non-electoral issues his department oversees (e.g., professional licensure). But Senate State Government Committee Chair Cris Dush (R-Bellefonte) suggested discussion of Pennsylvania’s participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) will come up then as well. 

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Conway Urges Pennsylvania Republicans to Play by ‘New Rules’ on Absentee Voting

Camp Hill, PA — Kellyanne Conway, a nationally renowned pollster and senior counselor in the Trump White House, called upon movement conservatives in Pennsylvania on Friday to adjust to mass absentee voting if they want to win tough elections.

“My theme tonight is about winning, not whining,” she told attendees of the annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference (PLC) at the Penn Harris Hotel just across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg. 

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Pennsylvania Lawmaker Presses Officials to Withdraw from Multi-State Voting Data-Sharing System

During discussions with Pennsylvania’s top election officials this week, state Senator Cris Dush (R-Bellefonte) urged the commonwealth to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an election data-sharing system. 

Over the last 14 months, five states have nixed their participation in ERIC. This month, both Iowa and Ohio indicated they will also do so. Some Republican-led states in the partnership wanted greater autonomy regarding use of the data collected by the organization; these participants also desired an end to a stipulation in ERIC’s bylaws instructing states to contact unregistered voters to remind them to vote. In a recent meeting, the nonprofit’s board rejected the suggested changes. 

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Pennsylvania Punishes County That Allowed Audit of Vote Counting Machines

The Pennsylvania Department of State decertified Fulton County’s voting machines on Wednesday after officials there participated in a third-party audit.

The voluntary probe came at the request of Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) who’s currently spearheading a larger effort to audit machines in Tioga, York and Philadelphia counties amid his ongoing campaign to ferret out fraudulent activity during the past two elections.

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