A Pennsylvania court this week issued an opinion allowing litigation attempting to block the use of electronic voting devices in Philadelphia, Northampton and Cumberland counties to proceed.
Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin P. Brobson (R), currently a candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, ruled that two advocacy groups and several state residents have standing to challenge the use of ExpressVote XL systems.
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Voter-fraud charges recently filed against a Philadelphia former judge of elections are spurring renewed emphasis by Pennsylvania legislators on enacting an election-integrity bill Gov. Tom Wolf (D) vetoed earlier this year.
State Rep. Seth Grove (R-York) introduced the initial version of his legislation in June. The measure, whose central feature was a voter-identification requirement for every election, quickly passed the House and Senate but Wolf rejected it as “voter suppression.” Since that time, the governor has sent mixed signals about whether he might support strengthened voter-ID rules, prompting Grove to reintroduce his bill.
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A new book by The Federalist editor and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway details how 2020 Pennsylvania-election litigation by former President Donald Trump lost its focus on equal protection and got dismissed.
In Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, Hemingway credits Philadelphia attorney Linda Kerns with attempting to keep Trump’s lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s election results focused on Fourteenth-Amendment concerns. The author significantly blames Rudy Giuliani for causing the case to unravel by making superfluous arguments.
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Pennsylvania acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid did not testify in person at Tuesday’s Senate State Government Committee hearing on bipartisan election reforms, accentuating a rift between committee Republicans and Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) administration.
The legislation the committee is considering is bipartisan and doesn’t include voter-ID provisions or similarly controversial items. Committee Chairman David Argall (R-Pottsville) however lamented that Wolf has suggested he may veto the bill.
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Legislation passed by the Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee on Tuesday would allow candidates and political parties to appoint poll watchers from any Pennsylvania county to any election precinct.
Under current law, candidates and parties may assign poll watchers—often party committee members or other volunteers—to election districts only within those poll watchers’ respective counties. The appointed watchers may make good-faith challenges to a voters’ identity, residence or voting eligibility.
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Bipartisan enthusiasm for election-reform legislation appeared solid at a Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee hearing on Thursday, save for one part: video live-streaming of mail-in-ballot counting.
Elements of the bill, sponsored by Sen. David Argall (R-PA-Pottsville) and Sen. Sharif Street (D-PA-Philadelphia), have arisen largely from recommendations in a June 2021 report by the Senate Special Committee on Election Integrity and Reform. Argall and Street’s proposal excludes some of the ad hoc panel’s more contentious ideas, particularly enhanced voter-identification rules, which Rep. Seth Grove (R-PA-York) is spearheading in separate legislation. (While Gov. Tom Wolf [D] vetoed Grove’s bill in June, the representative has reintroduced it in light of the governor’s subsequent remarks in favor of a strengthened voter-ID requirement.)
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