Pennsylvania conducted its 2020 Primary on June 2, despite
the continued novel coronavirus pandemic, which had delayed it six weeks and
limited the availability of poll workers and polling places, with the additional
challenges of avoiding contagion and civil strife while implementing new voting
machines in some Counties and the implementation of the Commonwealth’s new
election law, including the timely no-excuse balloting option.
Certification
of the results by county and state election officials took a week longer than
usual because of the mail-in ballots.
The Commonwealth and the media still have not reported complete
statewide results that include write-in vote totals, but because the results
are available from Counties, a thorough analysis is possible.
Primary elections are always
important because they cause the names of the major party candidates to appear
on the ballot for the General Election, and often the winner of the Primary is
all-but-certain to be elected. There are
also in even-numbered years the elections of party officials. Sometimes, there are ballot questions that
are binding referendums in the Primary.
But this year, the Primary was also a rehearsal for the General
Election. The election was conducted
fairly smoothly, but there were some problems.
The lessons learned should lead to improvements then. A report published today that had been
required by the General Assembly suggested amendments to the new voting law.
More
Counties used new voting machines for the first time because of state and
federal funds for cybersecurity. These machines
are less vulnerable to hacking, as recommended by the United States Department
of Homeland Security because of Russian hacking of election systems in Pennsylvania and across the Union. No-excuse absentee balloting was implemented
for the first time after Commonwealth’s new election law went into effect. Because of the pandemic, many voters took
advantage of the opportunity. Six
Counties received extensions from the Governor and another from a judge to
count ballots postmarked by June 2, instead of received by then, because of
postal delivery delays, although a limit of one week for the receipt of the
ballots was imposed. Ballots could also
be dropped off at County Election Services offices, but voters were obligated
thereby to drive downtown, possibly pay for parking and walk in a crowded
downtown amidst a contagion. Some
Counties made drop boxes available, but security concerns were raised,
prompting the Trump Campaign and some Republicans in western Pennsylvania have sued the Commonwealth and
some Counties after the election. Apart
from voters who applied online, between mailing applications for absentee
ballots to voters, voters mailing them back, mailing ballots to voters and
mailing them back, tens of thousands of voters who did mail in their ballots
were disenfranchised by their late delivery, despite the extensions. Therefore, my concern about mail-in voting
that I raised in posts last year after the law was approved was validated.
There must be more federal funding
to protect election systems, Counties should make drop boxes more available,
safe and secure to cast ballots in and their availability more publicized, and
the Commonwealth should accept mail-in ballots by the post-mark date, as the
state’s post-election report suggests, with a sufficient period for receipt,
such as the Friday post-election, which the report suggests. The state report also suggests mandating
Counties to send out mail-in ballots earlier than the current two weeks and
allowing Counties to start as much pre-canvassing preparation as possible ahead
of time, and allowing them more flexibility in hiring poll workers.
With the
election results delayed, the professional media held off on its usual practice
of “calling” winners of elections immediately and sometimes prematurely, as if
they have authority to decide the outcome, as it took days for most of the
ballots to be counted because of the large number of no-excuse absentee
ballots.
Despite the
disruption of the pandemic, the withdrawal of the only major candidate whose
name was on the GOP ballot, the appearance of the name on the ballot of only one
minor candidate, and the endorsement by the National and State Republican
Committees, Donald Trump still lost more than 100,000 votes for the GOP
presidential nomination, or nearly 10% of the votes of Republicans—more than twice
the level of intra-party opposition he claims across the Union. Many other Republicans have changed their
voter registration since 2016.
U.S.
Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
defeated a Trumpist (populist, protectionist, isolationist, nativist and
authoritarian) opponent in the Republican Primary, although the 3:2 vote margin
was closer than usual for an incumbent.
Fitzpatrick had an independent, bipartisan anti-Trump record, but voted
against impeachment of Trump on the grounds of wanting a criminal investigation
first, even though impeachment is not necessarily about criminal violations and
Trump has argued in court that he is immune from criminal investigations. That as many Republican voters still voted
against Fitzpatrick shows how there is never enough loyalty to Trump for them,
as many Republican primaries across America have become contests of who is the
most Trumpist.
Voters in
the City of Reading
approved all five of the amendments to the Home Rule Charter that were proposed
by the Charter Review Commission I chaired.
The 2019—2020 Commission was only the third since the Charter that has
been in effect since 1996. It was the
first time all of a Commission’s proposed amendments were approved. They are among the most significant reforms
to City governance since the Charter was approved, as they strengthen the
Separation of Powers and the independence of the City Auditor, for example.
