(This article first appeared in Broad & Liberty.)
For at least a year or more, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has been changing people’s voter registration information whenever someone registers a vehicle, according to a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on election issues. In most cases, the address for voter registration information is the same as the vehicle registration, so no changes are necessary. But in that small percentage of cases in which a person might have multiple domiciles or might be moving, the change could cause havoc for some voters.
Last week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a ruling on election law that made headlines because it dealt with the much debated signature requirement for mail-in ballots, a decision that could impact some races this November.
But an underreported element of the Supreme Court’s ruling also detailed how PennDOT automatically changed a Butler Township citizen’s voter registration when he registered a vehicle using an address that was his second residence in a different county, but still not his primary residence.
The court’s majority opinion authored by Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy gives a concise explanation of the circumstances:
“[Shane] O’Donnell testified that he appeared at his polling place in Butler Township, Luzerne County on election day but the poll workers could not find his name on the voter list. They let him vote by provisional ballot because he had previously voted in the district. O’Donnell had purchased a home in McAdoo in June 2023, but he resided with his mother and brother in Butler Township from that point until March 29, 2024, while his new home underwent renovations. O’Donnell noted he had changed the address for his vehicle registration in December 2023, and he expressed that PennDOT must have made the change to his voter registration at that time.”
In a concurring opinion by Justice David N. Wecht, that change to PennDOT’s registration system happened sometime in the summer of 2023.
“That change requires persons registering vehicles to opt out of concurrent updates of their voter registration. Absent affirmative opt-out selections, the voter’s address is now updated to that at which the vehicle is being registered,” Wecht noted.
In their separate opinions, both Mundy and Wecht expressed serious concerns about the new practices.
Although it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when PennDOT began these changes, they seem to have been joined to Governor Shapiro’s decision one year ago to implement “automatic voter registration (AVR)” for “residents obtaining driver licenses and ID cards at Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) driver and photo license centers.”
Previously, persons applying for a Pennsylvania driver’s license or ID card could “opt in” for voter registration by checking a box on the application form. But with Shapiro’s executive order, the voter now had to check an “opt out” box if they did not want to register to vote at the same time as getting a license or ID.
The same methodology appears to now apply to vehicle registration.
Sen. Cris Dush (R – Jefferson), who chairs the senate state government committee, has been opposed to Shapiro’s AVR change last year, saying it was an illegal overreach by the executive branch. He seems to be even more opposed now that he has learned the changes extend to vehicle registrations.
“This is a very unusual situation for me when I’m agreeing with Justice Wecht on election issues where he says that ‘We are called upon to decide whether the election code really means what it says.’ Duh! It does mean what it says, and we’ve never given the executive branch the authority to do this, whether it’s the Department of State or the Department of Transportation or the two of them working in conjunction with one another,” Dush said.
“We have definitions under the law. The election code is probably one of the most precise bodies of legislation and it’s specifically designed to protect the election process from being manipulated because it is the ultimate choice of the electors as to who they want to select to hold positions of authority. And when you have individuals in the executive branch — which are literally and figuratively under the law in our constitution — changing the law, that’s an issue,” Dush added.
The senator’s frustrations seem to be shared by many members of the court.
“Although PennDOT’s rogue transfer of voter registration in this case ultimately did not deprive O’Donnell of the right to vote, it would be troubling if PennDOT has a practice of making such a transfer without statutory authorization, or even the voter’s consent,” Justice Wecht wrote.
“Any administrative decision by PennDOT or the Pennsylvania Department of State to transfer an elector’s voter registration without that person’s affirmative consent in conjunction with a PennDOT application to change a vehicle registration, as opposed to a driver’s license, is therefore of questionable validity, particularly where, as here, no party has identified a valid administrative regulation authorizing such action,” Justice Mundy said.
Since Shapiro’s AVR decision which will turn one year old on Thursday, about 55,000 more voters have been registered compared to a September-to-September comparison from the year before when voters still had to opt in.
The current paper/printable vehicle registration form does not indicate anything about voter registration. Meanwhile, a PennDOT “change of address” vehicle registration form has opt-in and opt-out boxes available. Yet other documents, such as this “statement of non-ownership of vehicle(s)” and this “out of state address/photo exemption” form clearly show that the forms will automatically trigger updates to voter registration unless the user checks the “opt out” box.
Although Republicans have expressed some heartburn about the AVR decision and Democrats have generally cheered it, the change seems to have benefited Republicans more. Statistics from the Pennsylvania Department of State show about 4,900 more Republicans have registered via AVR than Democrats. New registrations for independent voters still outpaced both parties through the same time period.
Despite the partisan advantage in his favor, Dush says the Republican tilt hasn’t changed his mind.
“From my understanding, the Republicans have benefited from this, but that’s not my point. The rule of law has to stand,” Dush said.
Requests for comment sent to the Governor’s Office, the Department of State, and PennDot, were not returned by the publishing deadline. If comment is provided later, it will be added.
(Editor’s note: The original version of this article said “PennDOT automatically changed a Butler County citizen’s voter registration…” when it should have said Butler Township. The article has been changed to reflect that information.)
