Politics of elections snares Pennsylvania voting-machine aid

This story has been updated.

(Harrisburg) — The fate of legislation to help Pennsylvania’s counties afford new voting machines before next year’s election is in doubt after getting wrapped up in the politics of voting and election laws.

Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday that he will decide later in the week whether to sign or veto the bill, despite the Democrat’s support for the $90 million it carries in borrowing authority to help counties pay for new machines.

Hours before the bill passed the Republican-controlled Legislature last week, Republicans unveiled the borrowing provision and attached it to a hodge-podge of changes to election laws.

One of those provisions eliminates the single ballot option for voters to select a straight-party ticket in elections, prompting calls from Democrats to veto it. Democrats said it came out of the blue and had never been studied by the committee.

Republicans characterized the change as a bipartisan effort to encourage voters to vote for candidates, not parties. Democrats scrambled to see if Wolf had supported it and decried it as a setback to voting access and the civil rights of minorities that would effectively help down-ballot Republican candidates.

It is among a couple things in the bill that Wolf said he didn’t like.
“I’m looking for things that will make voting easier, not harder,” Wolf said. “So that’s the litmus test I will apply to this when I decide what I’m going to do.”

The bill passed with just seven Democrats voting for it. One of them was Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, who sponsored a bill to eliminate the straight party ballot option.

Democrats argue that studies show minorities are more partial to voting straight-party ticket. They also say it is an efficient method of voting and eliminating it would prolong waiting times to vote in more heavily populated areas.

Until Wednesday night, top Republicans had refused to commit to helping counties finance new voting machines. Wolf, they contended, had effectively forced counties into an expensive purchase with logistical hurdles to overcome before 2020’s presidential election and no legitimate example of an election irregularity in Pennsylvania.

House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, said combining the $90 million for voting machines with the provision to eliminate the straight party ticket option “was an attempt to reach a compromise” in divided government.

He declined, however, to discuss the details of negotiations. Wolf, meanwhile, said he did not recall telling Republicans that he supported it.

Eight other states allow it, although one, Texas, is eliminating it after this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. About a dozen states have eliminated it over the past quarter-century, according to the NCSL, although voters in one state, Michigan, restored it by ballot referendum last year after the Republican-controlled state government in 2016 enacted a law to eliminate it.

In Pennsylvania, the moves comes as Republicans worry that waves of moderate suburban voters inflamed by President Donald Trump could punish down-ballot Republican candidates in the 2020 election.

“The usage of the straight party button has actually increased in this decade and, I think in 2018, particularly in Philadelphia’s suburbs, you saw heavy usage of the straight-party ticket and that frankly helped flip otherwise Republican seats into Democratic hands,” said Rep. Kevin Boyle, D-Philadelphia.

Since Trump’s surprise victory in Pennsylvania in 2016’s presidential election, Republicans have hemorrhaged government offices in Philadelphia’s suburbs, even losing a majority of suburban Philadelphia’s legislative seats for the first time in modern history.

Republicans acknowledge that Democratic anger in moderate suburban districts is a concern. But they insisted it did not motivate the legislation.

Rep. Frank Farry, R-Bucks, said he has encountered voters angry at Trump while out door-knocking and tried to talk them out of pulling the straight Democratic lever by saying, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

“People should look at each candidate line by line, and voting straight party ticket discourages that,” Farry said.

Rep. Jesse Topper, R-Fulton, said straight party ticket voting helps him in his deep-red stretch of southcentral Pennsylvania. But that’s not a reason to keep it, he said.

“Straight party voting is a problem in how we elect people because there are many in this commonwealth who are not actually seeing who they are voting for,” Topper said.

An earlier story appears below.

(Harrisburg) — Legislation to help Pennsylvania’s counties afford new voting machines before next year’s election is wrapped up in the politics of voting and election laws.

Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday that he’ll decide later in the week whether to sign or veto a bill that was opposed by the vast majority of his fellow Democrats in the state Legislature.

The bill passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature authorizes borrowing $90 million to help counties underwrite a total voting-machine replacement cost that could exceed $100 million.

Hours before it passed, Republicans added that provision to legislation that also eliminates the single ballot option for voters to select a straight-party ticket in elections.

Democrats say that’ll benefit Republicans in down-ballot legislative elections. Republicans say it’ll encourage voters to vote for candidates, not parties.