Election Reform Efforts in Pennsylvania

Abstract

509 EVENTS SURROUNDING the November 2000 presidential election focused the nation’s attention on a process that few Americans consider more than twice yearly. As events in Florida gripped the nation, Americans became keenly aware of the pivotal role that the process of voting plays in the success of democracy. The subsequent scrutiny devoted to the electoral process revealed that elections are not perfect. However, at a time when many citizens are concerned about the significance of their votes, we must make every effort to ensure that, when a vote is cast, it is counted. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore1 made it clear that states should strive to promote the equal protection of their electors. The ballot of a voter in one part of Pennsylvania should not be counted by a different standard than that of a voter elsewhere in the Commonwealth. These concerns have inspired many states to initiate reviews of their election systems and outline plans for reform that would institute more uniformity into the electoral processes. Pennsylvania’s former Governor Tom Ridge had begun exploring ways to improve the Commonwealth’s electoral system well before the 2000 election. Under his guidance, the Pennsylvania Department of State had been studying methods of establishing a centralized voter registration system for the Commonwealth and had promoted other election reforms. Even though Pennsylvania did not experience the magnitude of problems encountered elsewhere in the 2000 election, its leaders understood that they should take steps to bolster the confidence of Pennsylvania’s citizens in our electoral process. As the year 2001 began, election reform in Pennsylvania took three tracks. First, Governor Ridge requested $8.5 million in his 2001–2002 budget for the development of a statewide integrated voter registration system. The system envisioned would combine 67 diverse county voter registration systems into one single statewide system, while electronically linking state agency voter registration data to the system. Second, the Pennsylvania General Assembly convened a Joint Select Committee to Examine Election Issues. This Committee was charged with examining a broad array of election issues. Over the course of 2001, the Joint Select Committee held hearings across the state on, among other issues, voting systems, voter registration, and Election Day procedures. The third track of Pennsylvania’s election reform effort focused on county voting methods. In March 2001, Governor Ridge signed Executive Order 2001-3 establishing the Voting Modernization Task Force to examine the method by which Pennsylvania’s voters cast their ballots and make recommendations for modernizing these systems.2 Pennsylvania is a textbook example of a decentralized election system. Its Election Code places the responsibility for the conduct of elections with the 67 county boards of election across the Commonwealth. Although the Secretary of the Commonwealth holds the title of Pennsylvania’s chief election official, until a recent act of the General Assembly (Act 3 of