Tag: Pennsylvania elections

Senate Panel Recommends Schmidt as Pennsylvania Secretary of State, Votes for Anti-ERIC Bill

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Senate State Government Committee on Monday recommended confirming secretary of the commonwealth nominee Al Schmidt.

The panel voted 10-1 to back the Republican acting secretary and former Philadelphia city commissioner. In a subsequent, off-the-floor meeting, the committee approved a bill to facilitate removal of Pennsylvania from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a controversial multi-state data-sharing program supporters say helps states maintain accurate voter rolls. The bill would permit the state to use the Social Security death database and change-of-address records to identify voter-registry errors.

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Primary Runoffs Proposed in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Senators Ryan Aument (R-Lititz) and Frank Farry (R-Langhorne) on Wednesday proposed creating runoff primary elections in the Keystone State.

The two lawmakers wrote in a memorandum describing their legislation that they want to ensure that all major-party nominees have the support of at least half of participants in a primary. Their bill would require a second primary contest between the top two vote-getters in the initial nomination election whenever no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote. Aument and Farry clarified that their bill would not apply to general elections. 

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Bill Introduced to Correct Pennsylvania’s Voter Records

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania State Sen. Ryan Aument (R-Lititz) announced yesterday he has introduced a bill to correct errors in the state’s voter record-keeping system.

In Dec. 2019, a report by Democratic then-Auditor General Eugene DePasquale detailed a host of problems with that system, known as the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE). Within that registry, which is maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of State, DePasquale and his staff discovered 24,408 cases of the same driver’s license (DL) number being indicated on multiple voter records. They also found 2,991 voter records containing information matching that on state Department of Health deceased files.

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Largely Citizen-Drawn Congressional Map Passed by Pennsylvania House Committee

Bradley Vasoli

By a nearly party-line vote of 14 to 11, the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee voted Wednesday to advance a largely citizen-created map for congressional redistricting.

Lehigh County resident Amanda Holt submitted the map in its original form. The slightly modified version of the plan received the support of all committee Republicans except Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Macungie) and no Democrats.

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At Pennsylvania Senate Meeting on Elections, Subpoenas Issued, Dem Calls GOPers McCarthyites, Another Has Remarks Curtailed for Breaking Senate Rules

Bradley Vasoli

At Wednesday’s meeting concerning the Pennsylvania’s Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee’s election investigation, which saw Republicans winning a vote to subpoena voter records, Democrats fumed.

One angrily compared GOP colleagues to Joe McCarthy, the notoriously zealous anti-communist U.S. senator from Wisconsin who served from 1947 to 1957.

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Lawmaker Gears Up to Grill Pennsylvania Department of State on Voter-Registry Errors Uncovered by Democrat Auditor General

Bradley Vasoli

As Pennsylvania Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee Majority Chair Cris Dush (R-Wellsboro) investigates recent elections, Democratic lawmakers against tightening election security must contend with a withering 2019 audit of Pennsylvania’s voter registry.

At his investigation’s initial hearing last Thursday, Dush announced his intention to hold the Department of State (DOS) accountable for the mismanagement identified in the audit by calling the department to testify at the committee’s next hearing to be scheduled soon. 

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Trump Campaign Updates Press on Legal Wins in Pennsylvania

Corinne Murdock

The Trump campaign hosted a surrogate briefing call Thursday with updates on litigation, mostly concerning Pennsylvania. As in the previous call, the speakers reiterated that these legal proceedings take time to form and execute.

Speakers included Director of Battleground Strategy Nick Trainer, Director of Communications Tim Murtaugh, Deputy Campaign Manager Justin Clark, and Campaign Counsel Matt Morgan.

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