Gov. Tom Wolf recently vetoed the Voting Rights Protection Act (House Bill 1300), which, among other things, would have allowed mail-in ballots to be counted starting five days before the election; moved the last day to register to vote back to 30 days prior to an election; and required voters to receive scannable voter registration cards through their counties.
According to Wolf, House Bill 1300 “creates unconscionable, and in some cases unconstitutional, barriers to voting in Pennsylvania and rolls back many of the bipartisan improvements made in Act 77 of 2019.” He added that the legislation would “infringe on Pennsylvanians’ freedom to vote by imposing additional voter identification restrictions, limiting our mail-in voting system, which Pennsylvanians have widely embraced, and reducing the number of days to register to vote.”
In response, House State Government Committee Chairman Seth Grove (R-York), who authored the bill, issued the following statement:
“With a swipe of his veto pen, Gov. Tom Wolf once again failed Pennsylvanians. From signature verification to requiring voters to show identification when voting, the Voting Rights Protection Act included initiatives supported by the majority of Pennsylvania voters. In fact, a recent poll by Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster found that 74 percent of those polled support voters’ having to show an identification card and 81 percent are in favor of signature verification. The numbers don’t lie.
“Throughout 10 hearings on Pennsylvania’s election process, we heard time and again the need to fix flaws in our election. Local election officials asked for the deadline to register to vote and the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot be moved up so their staff have more time to do their jobs. The Voting Rights Protection Act would have done what people who work in elections asked for. Unfortunately, Wolf turned a blind eye to their requests.”
Grove added that his efforts are not over.
“As chairman of the House State Government Committee, I will continue to seek solutions to the issues at hand,” he said. “This will begin with the committee taking up Senate Bill 735 to require voter identification via a constitutional amendment. This will take election reform directly to the people, the majority of whom support the measure, and bypass the executive branch.”
Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-Centre/Mifflin) issued the following statement:
“It is a shame that he would deny counties their desired asks and turn a deaf ear to an overwhelming number of Pennsylvanians who support things like enhanced voter identification and increased accessibility through modernization by vetoing this bill. That is especially true when he did not spend one minute of his time actually discussing it or negotiating it with the members who authored this legislation, despite their best efforts to reach out to him to do so.
“When voters complain about the chronic problems with our election system that continue to erode confidence in our election outcomes, they will only have Gov. Wolf to blame for not engaging with lawmakers on this bill and not signing this comprehensive legislation supported by the very voters he is claiming to protect.”
