DV Journal

Pennsylvania will spend about $10.6 million to update its voter registration database and election management system.

After a nearly year-long process that began with requests for proposals, the state hired Civix, a Louisiana company, to provide the software for the new system.

Secretary of State Al Schmidt told DV Journal the current SURE (Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors) system is more than 20 years old.

“It has been very reliable all this time and we’ve made update after update and upgrade after upgrade to keep it going. And it will continue to be used until the new system is brought on board, ” Schmidt said. But times change.

“It’s somewhat antiquated, like having an iPhone from 2003. You don’t want to change, but at some point, you’ve got to.”

While Pennsylvania has one database that shows registered voters, all 67 counties interact with it, he said.

“When a voter is registered, it’s the county registering them,” he said. “When a mail-in ballot comes in, it’s the county processing the mail-in ballot application.”

So while the Pennsylvania Department of State hosts the system, the counties use it “day-to-day.”

“One thing very important for me in engaging with the vendors was we worked closely with the county directors,” said Schmidt, a former Philadelphia election commissioner. “They and their clerks are the people who really use this system day in and day out.”

It still takes a human clerk to change voter registration. The state does not register or change voter registration. The counties do that.

“The Department of State does not cancel a single voter, or move a single voter or anything like that,” said Schmidt. “That work is entirely done at the county level.”

And what happens when a voter dies?

The state Department of Health notifies the Department of State, which then tells the county, Schmidt said. And when a voter moves, either in-state or out-of-state, the Department of State officials send the county where the person had resided a notification to take them off their rolls.

The state participates in the ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center) system, which sends a notification if a Pennsylvania voter registers in another ERIC state. But if they move to a state that doesn’t participate in the program, that voter could fall through the cracks.

Asked if they are doing this upgrade in 2025 since it’s an off-year election, Schmidt said, “The first deliverable from the vendor is a project plan, which will have a timeline for when we should expect different parts of this to be completed. And that will give us a better handle on the timeline.”

“One thing I’ve been fully adamant about, having run elections at the county level for 10 years, is that you do everything you can to avoid any changes during a high turnout election like a presidential general election,” he said.  “You would not want to roll out a new system in a presidential general election, just as a racecar driver would not want to be driving a car for the first time in a race. You would want some experience with it to make sure you’re familiar with it at the county level to make sure any issues that arise are addressed well in advance of a high-turnout election, with an avalanche of voter registration applications and mail-in ballot applications and all the rest.

“We want our counties to be comfortable with the system they’ll be working with,” he said.

James Allen, director of elections for Delaware County, looks forward to the new system because of all the issues with the aging SURE system.

“The SURE system is old, more than 20 years old,” said Allen. “It used to be a multi-state system, but Pennsylvania is the only state using this rickety and very old SURE system now.”

When someone comes to vote, and the poll workers need to verify their registration, it can take 10 to 15 minutes, he said.

“It takes forever to process and verify voter ID,” said Allen. “It leads to lines and voter impatience.”

Scott Presler, a voter registration activist with Early Vote Action, is also frustrated by Pennsylvania’s system.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Presler. “They still have thousands of voters to clean off the rolls who are actively registered in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.”

Civix will also provide new software for candidates to report their financing, lobbying disclosure, and for reporting election night results. It will be easier to search for this information.

“The more transparency for all this, the better,” said Schmidt.

Allen said, “We’re hoping the Department of State focuses on voter registration and voter history instead of the shiny objects of election reporting or campaign finance automation. We really need the voter registration and voter history to function.”

To that end, the state hired a chief modernization officer for $137,018 a year, officials said.

“That’s a good sign,” Allen said. “All 67 counties wish this process had gotten underway a lot sooner. We’re looking forward to it with a lot of impatience.”

The Civix contract includes an initial $1.06 million acquisition cost, which will be paid using an approved 2024-25 budget appropriation. The contract base term is four years, with three optional one-year extensions. Officials said the payments are tied to Civix’s phased deliverable requirements.

If you want a foreshadowing of how the 2024 Presidential Election will be conducted in the Commonwealth, you should watch the first day of the confirmation hearing held May 23, 2023 for Al Schmidt, as well as the second day on June 26, 2023.

Schmidt is Gov. Josh Shapiro’s nominee to be Secretary of State.

While the press touts this nomination of a registered Republican by a Democrat administration as an effort at bipartisanship, voters should truly wonder whether Shapiro would have nominated Schmidt unless he was absolutely sure that as Secretary of State, Schmidt would fall in line with the goals and objectives of an elected Democrat governor.  Spoiler alert: get ready for the 2024 Pennsylvania election to be just as “transparent” as Philly in 2020.

Pennsylvania State Senator Cris Dush made clear in his opening remarks at the May 24, 2023 hearing that he considers election integrity a priority, noting, it would be the “….height of arrogance to assume we cannot improve our elections in this Commonweath.” Any reasonable person would agree with this statement – everyone and everything has room for improvement.  However, Al Schmidt may possibly believe otherwise.

After the 2020 Presidential election, when Al Schmidt was one of the three Commissioners in charge of administering elections in Philadelphia, he tweeted, “We just certified the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.  Despite all the meritless litigation and misinformation targeting our electoral system, I’m proud that the birthplace of our Republic held the most transparent and secure election in the history of Philadelphia.” @Commish_Schmidt Nov 23, 2020.

I would like to see Schmidt elaborate on this tweet.  What made the 2020 election the most transparent and secure election in Philadelphia?  Are we to believe that the 2016 election was less transparent and less secure?  For that matter, he mentions Philly’s place as the birthplace of the Republic – what made the rest of the elections in our history less transparent and less secure?  If Schmidt speaks about the 2020 election with such superlatives, does he really think there is any room for improvement, as Senator Dush seems to hope?.

Schmidt should also explain which litigation he deemed so “meritless” that it needed to be called out.  Was he addressing the legal challenges over the satellite election offices that somewhat suddenly popped up in neighborhoods chosen by the Philadelphia City Commissioners, using a slush fund connected to Mark Zuckerberg?  In 2020, Schmidt tweeted he “Applied for, received, completed, and submitted my mail-in ballot at our on-stop-shop satellite election office….” @Commish_Schmidt. Sept 29, 2020. The legal challenges simply asked that watchers be allowed to remain in the satellite election offices to reasonably see and hear what was occurring.  I would like Schmidt to explain what about that is “meritless.”  Schmidt also called the 2020 election the “most transparent.”  How can an election conducted with no observers in the satellite election office where Schmidt himself voted be considered transparent?

Curiously, when confronted by a Trump Campaign official in 2020 about what exactly was happening inside those offices, Schmidt first asked for the opportunity to telephone the city’s lawyers.  When pressed further, Schmidt demurred, stating, “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer.”  The entire exchange was caught on video, available here.  Perhaps the committee should have questioned Schmidt on why, as a top Philadelphia election official, he could not define what was happening in the satellite election offices because he “was not a lawyer.”

Another lawsuit filed in 2020 challenged the lack of the ability of observers to watch the processing of mail-in ballots due to parade gates erected to keep observers to one side of the mammoth Philadelphia Convention Center.  A witness testified that the barricade kept him at least fifteen feet away from the first row of tables while the last row was over hundred feet away.  While the trial Court denied the request, the Commonwealth Court judge hearing the appeal immediately reversed and ordered that the watcher “be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process within six feet….”

Phialdelphia stopped all counting until a stay was in place that invalidated the Commonwealth Court order, so the observers never did get the chance to get within six feet of the action.  Schmidt should explain why he thinks that lawsuit was “meritless.”  Asking for better visibility to observe the counting seems to be the very definition of the transparency he touts in his tweets.

However, Schmidt seemed to champion the court’s order approving his office’s decision to keep observers who watched ballot counting secluded behind parade gates.  With Schmidt in the Shapiro administration, perhaps this is his version of transparency we can expect in future elections.

Senator Dush and other committee members, to their credit, asked wide ranging questions including many about voter registration, the security of drop boxes, the integrity of the voter rolls, and the persistent problem in Pennsylvania that each county seems to interpret the laws differently, resulting in a frustrating lack of uniformity. However, they just scratched the surface and Schmidt hesitated on more than a few questions in the first hearing, saying his office would supply the information later.

I had hoped that the committee would  follow up on Schmidt’s statement during the first day of hearing that the law “does not permit the Board of Elections to count undated or wrongly dated ballots.”   On May 19, 2023, just five days before his hearing, he filed a brief in federal court, calling the date on the outside of a ballot envelope “immaterial” and stating that it is “a date that absolutely no one can defend as needed for any part of Pennsylvania’s election administration.”

Schmidt clearly agrees with the plaintiffs in that case who believe that undated and wrongly date ballots should be counted, despite the text of the Pennsylvania law.  He should explain why – as well as what other laws he feels are immaterial.  After all, he had no problem dismissing all of the 2020 election litigation as meritless.  It appears when there is a lawsuit that aligns with the priorities of the current Democrat administration, he changes his tune – and even sides with the plaintiffs and against the laws duly enacted by our legislature.

The Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee has now approved Schmidt’s nomination, moving him closer to confirmation.  For the legislators that plan to vote on Schmidt’s confirmation – if we are to improve elections in this Commonwealth, shouldn’t our Secretary of State respect and enforce the laws duly enacted by elected representatives?  The outcome of the 2024 presidential election will likely depend on it.

If Schmidt truly believes that the way the 2020 election was conducted was “…the most transparent and secure election in the history of Philadelphia,” then in 2024, if observers again have no meaningful access to the process and Schmidt as Secretary aligns with Democrat led lawsuits while dismissing any Republican filed litigation as “meritless,” no one should be surprised.

Editor’s Note: Because the full senate did not have a vote, Al Schmidt and two other secretaries, Department of Human Services Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh and Department of Revenue Secretary Pat Browne were automatically confirmed June 29, as per the state constitution.

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