Pennsylvania’s elections are safe and secure, featuring tried-and-tested systems that are proven to protect the vote and ensure accuracy in the results. Still, with Nov. 5 barely a month away, some voters are concerned about how our elections are run. They shouldn’t be.
I’ve had a front-row seat to plenty of elections. As Pennsylvania’s top executive, I worked directly with our Department of State to safeguard the built-in processes that protect the integrity of the system. As a Bucks County commissioner, I served as a member of the county’s Board of Elections, where I had a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into protecting your vote. The process is rigorous.
I’m confident in the safeguards in place, and you should be, too.
The commonwealth has implemented a range of measures to ensure that every aspect of election administration, from voter registration to logic and accuracy testing to the certification of results is both safe and secure.
One of the joys of campaigning for office and serving in an elected post is all the people you meet. That’s especially true on election day. That’s when you meet the true champions of democracy.
Statewide, Pennsylvania utilizes about 45,000 poll workers to staff 9,000 voting locations. These dedicated friends, neighbors and co-workers undergo rigorous training to become experts on the rules and laws of the election process.
Local election officials and poll workers put in long hours on election day to ensure everything runs as planned. It takes tens of thousands of everyday Pennsylvanians – people from both parties – to make sure our elections run smoothly.
They did it in April during the primary election – and every election before that – and they will do it again in November during the general election.
Another reason our elections work so well is because transparency is a key part of the process, and anyone can witness it by serving as a poll worker for the county or as a poll watcher for their parties or candidates of choice.
Seeing really is believing.
And there is a lot to see in how our elections are run. For most voters, though, their only experience is going to the polls to cast their ballots.
If we want voters to be confident in how Pennsylvania’s elections are run and how the votes are counted, then it’s up to us to give them a behind-the-scenes look at the many systems in place that safeguard the electoral process and protect their vote.
It starts before election day, with public testing of voting machines and systems. All 67 counties in the commonwealth conduct pre-election logic and accuracy testing. These stress tests ensure the integrity of ballots, scanners, ballot-marking devices, and all components of a county’s certified voting system.
It happens on election day, too, when those trained workers confirm voter eligibility and identity when ballots are cast. And it continues after the election has ended, when people are brought in from all political parties to observe the vote-counting process.
The reality is our elections have many built-in processes for verification and review before, during and after a vote is cast.
Ballots from election day and the mail are verified and counted, ensuring eligibility and accuracy every step of the way. Officials carefully follow these legal procedures to ensure exactly one vote per one eligible voter is counted. The final vote count is audited twice to confirm accuracy. Local election vote counts are publicized and certified in public meetings, which you can attend yourself.
These checks and balances happen in every election in Pennsylvania so we can rest assured that votes are cast fairly and counted correctly.
For those of us involved in civic engagement, we all want the same thing: We want voters to participate confidently in the electoral process.
By encouraging voters to learn more about how our elections work, we can come together on election day and trust that the results have been delivered fairly and accurately.
Delaware County election board member John McBlain has resigned, accusing the panel of rushing to add three “voter service centers” in deeply Democratic parts of the suburban Philadelphia county, something he said adds a blatant element of unfairness to the county’s election process.
McBlain, the lone Republican on Delaware County’s election board, has been the minority party appointee on the three-member election board since 2021. All members of the election board are appointed by the county council, which has been majority-Democratic since early 2020. A provision in the county’s charter ensures a check on the majority party, however, requiring that at least one member of the election board be a representative of the minority party.
At a special meeting of the election board on Friday, McBlain announced his intention to quit effective at the end of November, saying his decision was due to the board’s approval of three voter service centers in Upper Darby, Chester, and Chester Heights — all three Democratic strongholds.
“I thought I could serve on this board as long as I believed that we were making sure the elections were both secure and fair,” McBlain began at the end of the meeting on Friday, October 11. “I think the board has put their finger on the scale, so I don’t think that that fairness aspect is there anymore. Therefore, I — as much as I’m tempted to do it, as of effective immediately — I tender my resignation as of November 30th, 2024, so that I’ll complete my duties during the election certification process. But then I hereby resign from the board after that date.”
Voter service centers (VSCs) are essentially no different than “satellite election offices” which were controversial as far back as the 2020 general election. Whichever name is used, the creation is meant to be a literal extension of the county’s primary election office — the one place where a voter could register to vote, request a mail-in ballot, and return that ballot, all at the same time and same place. Philadelphia’s satellite election offices drew the ire of Republicans that year because Philadelphia refused to allow poll watchers anywhere inside, arguing that the locations were county election offices, so they could not be polling places. A Commonwealth Court ruling later upheld that argument to exclude poll watchers.
Like Philadelphia, Delaware County also used satellite election offices in 2020, the rationale largely being the pandemic. But according to McBlain, since 2020 “the only voter service center that we’ve maintained has been [the original and main election office] at the Media courthouse, and we’ve done that for each election, and that has been adequate.”
Now, McBlain says, the three VSCs seem to be created spur of the moment, and they’re in some of the deepest blue parts of the county.
“I don’t understand what has changed. We are down — I want to say by more than a third, if not two thirds — the number of applications for mail-in votes as we were in 2020,” McBlain said.
“There’s no more pandemic where we need to sort of spread things out. There’s not a need for it. The Media [county seat] office is more than adequately handling all requests for registration for applications to handle receipt of mail-in or absentee ballots,” McBlain told Broad + Liberty after his resignation. “No one has been calling publicly for [VSCs]. I don’t recall one member of the public attending a previous meeting this year [prior to Oct. 11] and advocating that we ought to have voter service centers for better service to the residents.”
In the September 24 meeting of the election board, county election director Jim Allen distinctly raised the possibility of adding VSCs, and listed only the sites of Upper Darby, Chester, and Chester Heights as possibilities.
But it’s what happened next that troubled McBlain the most.
McBlain says just after that meeting, he was talking to Allen. Then Donna Cantor, who McBlain says is a lawyer for the county Democratic party, approached them both.
“She [Cantor] came up to Mr. Allen and said to him that Colleen Guiney, the chairwoman of the [county] Democratic Party, had the list of volunteers to staff the voter services center ready. And I expressed shock,” McBlain said.
“I said, ‘I didn’t realize that we had decided that we were going to have voter services centers.’ And to Jim Allen’s credit, I mean, he immediately said ‘Well, listen at any voter services centers, we’re not going to have partisan volunteers staffing.’ But the Democratic Party was already prepared to staff these voter services centers at the September meeting where again, it was discussed almost in passing,” McBlain explained.
Election Director Allen did not directly refute that a conversation with Cantor happened, but he did offer his own context.
“[S]omeone approached me about the possible use of volunteers, in front of Mr. McBlain, and I turned away the suggestion. There were no specifics or a ‘list,’” he said.
Cantor did not respond to a request for comment asking if she disputed McBlain’s version of the conversation.
Guiney responded to a request for comment, but did not answer specific questions about whether the county Democrats were somehow prepared to staff VSCs before the VSCs were even discussed publicly and approved. Guiney mostly filibustered.
“It is a matter of public record that voter services centers are located in areas convenient to public transit, and in facilities already wired into the secure Delaware County communications system,” Guiney said. “We have had Voter Service Centers in previous elections, and surrounding counties have already opened Voter Service Centers this cycle. This matter has already been discussed on the publicly streamed Board of Elections leading up to the most recent meeting.
“The Democratic party has robust volunteer engagement, but the County is not using volunteers in the Voter Service Centers. Any Delaware County resident, of any political party is welcome to apply for a temporary position with the Board of Elections by contacting the Bureau of Elections for more information,” Guiney concluded.
For the public comment portion of the Oct. 11 special meeting, 21 total people rose to address the election board. A Broad + Liberty analysis showed five of them spoke about regular polling locations, one spoke about poll worker safety, thirteen spoke in favor of adding VSCs, and two expressed concerns about VSCs.
“So at the time of the [Oct. 11] meeting, it was clear that there was a partisan [effort] to pack the room in favor of this. There were dozens of Democratic committee people or volunteers,” McBlain said. “There were a dozen or more members of the League of Women voters who were nothing more than the provisional wing of the Delaware County Democratic Party who were present to speak in favor of it.”
A request for comment to the two other members of the election board, sent to them via the county’s spokesperson, was not returned.
Democratic State Representative and chair of the Upper Darby Democratic committee Heather Boyd was among the thirteen who spoke in favor of the measure. Others included a county Democratic committee member, someone that ran for delegate to the Democratic National Convention last May, as well as a donor to a local Democratic candidate, and the founder of a progressive group in Delco. Two persons from the League of Women Voters also spoke.
One Drexel Hill resident questioned the rationale of the satellite site locations. “I’m also concerned about the equity of these polling places, these satellite polling places. Where is the equity for the communities that have heavy Republican presence? Where is their pop-up satellite location [in] communities such as Parkside, Trainer, and Upland — communities that are also considered perhaps low income communities, where is their pop-up voting site?”
McBlain also said VSCs came up very briefly but somewhat unseriously months ago, he suggested the county survey all municipalities to see which ones might be interested, but that the county never acted on that suggestion.
To anyone thinking McBlain has a hair trigger for an election conspiracy need only listen to his Democrat counterparts to understand that’s not the case.
“I think you served the board with great distinction,” Election Board Chairwoman Ashley Lunkenheimer said upon hearing McBlain’s intention to resign. “I think there’s very few in the county or in the commonwealth who have a better knowledge of election law and I think that your viewpoint has always been well served on this board, but I appreciate that you’re continuing your duties than through the election because we need — you have a really good perspective on elections.”
“John McBlain is someone who I’m gonna disagree with on a great many policy issues, but we both have the same factual understanding of how elections are conducted,” Democratic Councilwoman Christine Reuther told the Inquirer in November, when Reuther was about to renominate him to the election board. “He doesn’t see conspiracy theories every time you turn around.”
Reuther’s November comments to the Inquirer came just as a long-simmering partisan power struggle over the election board was about to come to a close. Earlier in the year, the county council passed an ordinance that would allow it to reject the minority party’s nomination for the election board. The resolution went further, saying that the county had the “unfettered discretion” to reject as many candidates from the minority party as it liked until it found a suitable candidate.
Council Democrats passed the ordinance in January of 2023. Republicans quickly denounced the move as a power grab. When Republicans sued in June, a spokesperson for the council accused Delco Republicans of playing politics.
“Interestingly, the Delco GOP public statements on this case suggests [sic] a ‘blatant power grab,’” the county said in a statement to the Delco Daily Times. “However, the change in law which is being challenged was passed on January 17, 2023. Now, more than five months later, has the lawsuit [sic] been filed. It appears less an effort to secure a fair election, and more a weak effort to develop a talking point for an upcoming county election.”
However, a judge ruled in December the ordinance was illegal and struck it down.
“The Ordinance was an arrogant attempt by County Council to create a veto power for themselves to block the right of the Delaware County Republican Party Chairman to nominate his preferred member to the Delaware County Board of Elections,” said Wally Zimolong, one of the attorneys who fought the suit on behalf of the county GOP.
Reuther, the member of council who oversees the county’s elections, has also danced on the partisan tightrope in a presidential election before.
In 2020, Reuther was clearly the lead on the county’s pursuit of and eventual acceptance of election grants from the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL. Those grants would later be famous for receiving a $350 million infusion from Mark Zuckerberg
As Delaware County got nearer to accepting the grant, the county solicitor flagged to Reuther some of the left-leaning tendencies of the granting agency.
“Not at all surprising,” Reuther said in response. “I am seeking funds to fairly and safely administer the election so everyone legally registered to vote can do so and have their votes count. If a left leaning public charity wants to further my objective, I am good with it. I will deal with the blow back.”
The Pennsylvania General Assembly later banned local election offices from accepting grants from outside, private agencies, in part because of the concerns that the grants resulted in improper and unbalanced political influence.
McBlain was not a part of the election board at that time.
But this time, he says it’s not election security he’s worried about.
“I think this is the Delaware County Democratic Party putting their hand on the scale with these voter services centers to literally get out the vote in highly partisan areas of the county without any consideration of [if] there’s a reason that they didn’t come in and offer it in Marple or Springfield. So I just wasn’t going to be part of it anymore. I’m disgusted with this partisanship showing its head at the 11th hour.”
Thanks to those efforts over the last several election cycles, we have reduced wait times for election results and mail-in ballots are often the first reported election results on election night, rather than waiting days for those results to be processed.
Unfortunately, Democrats in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives recently passed legislation along party lines that would take a step backward and return us to the days of not having election results on Election Day. This same bill would allow counties to count mail-in ballots after Election Day, which would inject more questions into ongoing concerns about the integrity of our elections.
In fact, it is a change that would only make the act of government easier for the government itself and does nothing to improve trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections.
That means while counties are afforded the opportunity for additional pre-canvassing time, they are also given the option of counting mail-in ballots after Election Day and are not required to provide election results under any specific timeline other than the required certification date.
As a result, some counties may take days after Election Day to process mail-in ballots and delay the announcement of results.
This will surely only add to existing suspicions and questions about our elections.
In what is sure to be an election year with many contested races from president down to the General Assembly, adding questions and suspicion back into the process to achieve an election reform that is not widely supported and is objectively unnecessary is the kind of legislation we should avoid.
Meanwhile, the same Democrats continue to bottle up popular election security reforms that would continue Pennsylvania on a path of increased trust and satisfaction with the election process.
With 100 signatures on the voter identification constitutional amendment discharge petition, it is clear House Democrats need to get out of their own way and put up this easily achievable, and highly popular, election reform for a vote in the House.
Just months away from a national election where Pennsylvania will again play center stage let’s get politics out of the way, let’s stop passing “talking points legislation” that makes government better for government, and let’s start putting the people of this Commonwealth first by doing what they believe will increase election confidence instead of adding more questions into the process.
A relatively new nonprofit that orchestrated the distribution of grants to county election offices all across Pennsylvania in the runup to the 2020 presidential vote has recently made donations to Democratic-aligned political action committees, further undercutting the organization’s own claims it is nonpartisan.
The revelations shed more light on a nonprofit that, while launched in the Trump era, has remained active and has hosted voter registration parties in Bucks County in advance of Tuesday’s special election for House District 140. Those parties have included live bands with giveaways like free coffee and funnel cakes, and “amazing prizes like couches and coolers!”
According to its website, “The Voter Project is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring all Pennsylvania voters can cast a ballot in a safe, secure, and convenient way.” The project is organized as a 501(c)4, meaning it is a nonprofit, but it can engage in certain activities that a 501(c)3 could not.
The Voter Project’s disclosures with the IRS show a $35,000 donation to Agenda PAC in late October, 2022. It was the second largest donation Agenda PAC received in the federal reporting cycle from 2021-22, representing about fifteen percent of Agenda PACs total fundraising haul in that same period.
Agenda PAC, meanwhile, spent between $9,000 to $11,500 on Youtube ads promoting the Democratic slates of candidates in the 2023 school board races in Pennridge and Central Bucks, according to Youtube’s library of political advertisements purchased on its platform.
In at least two of those Youtube ads, the narrator chastises the Central Bucks School Board, only to end with a graphic that promotes the slate of candidates in Pennridge, offering no explanation as to why the CBSD’s actions should influence the Pennridge races.
Agenda PAC also spent $100,000 in support of Sen. John Fetterman’s campaign.
Agenda PAC has come under recent scrutiny after a Daily Caller article revealed that the PAC, chaired by hasn’t filed any campaign finance reports for 2023.
The Voter Project, meanwhile, has recently become its own 501(c)4, but started off as a project of the Keystone Research Center, a left-of-center Harrisburg think tank.
The Voter Project and its board president, Kevin Mack, were instrumental in distributing election grants to counties in the runup to the 2020 by a Chicago-based nonprofit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).
After Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan gave $350 million to the CTCL in September of 2020, Republicans alleged the project was a Trojan Horse to increase turnout in heavily Democratic districts and dubbed the entire project “Zuckerbucks.”
A Broad + Liberty analysis from 2021 showed the grants distributed in Pennsylvania that year were in fact heavily skewed towards “blue” voting counties like Philadelphia, Allegheny, Delaware, and Centre.
Although the CTCL never responded to any inquiries from Broad + Liberty, it has generally countered these claims by saying that after the Zuckerberg grants were received, the CTCL transitioned the grants from invitation only to an open call. Therefore, CTCL has argued that Republican-leaning counties that received small awards nevertheless largely received 100 percent of their grant request.
While that may be true, it is also true that many of the Democratic counties in Pennsylvania that received large awards were given those grants prior to the open call — a time when “red” counties had no means at all of applying for or receiving the grants.
Before the “open call” portion of the granting process, The Voter Project and the CTCL worked exclusively with blue counties for grant awards, with the lone exception of Republican-leaning Bucks County. In that instance, then-Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar personally reached out to Bucks County commissioners to see if they would be interested in taking a grant. Boockvar has never explained why she was authorized to reach out to Bucks County to make the invitation, or why Bucks County was chosen at a time when other counties were shut out.
Months after the 2020 election, Mack, whose main job is as a partner for a political-mail consulting agency in Washington D.C., wrote on his corporate biography page that he had “served as Lead Strategist for The Voter Project in Pennsylvania which was instrumental in signing up over 3.2 million people to vote by mail and leading the soft-side effort to win the swing state in 2020,” (emphasis added).
Mack’s employment with the D.C.-based firm Deliver Strategies has also played a prominent role in how The Voter Project has spent its money. According to the most recent IRS 990 form for The Voter Project, it spent $4.3 million with Deliver Strategies.
On the same form, the nonprofit addressed any potential ethical concerns by saying, “This was an arms-length vendor relationship and The Voter Project relied on outside individuals and organizations to advise on overall spending, budgets and fees for services.”
Mack’s partner at Deliver Strategies, Fiona Conroy, is a director at a 501(c)4 political nonprofit called Project Keystone, which is a polling consortium for Democratic candidates and causes.
In addition to giving the $35,000 to Agenda PAC, The Voter Project has also given grants to two D.C.-based organizations, Pennsylvania Progress, and Pennsylvania Forward. Those two political nonprofits share the same principal officer and address. While Pennsylvania Progress’ mission statement is to “PROVIDE NONPARTISAN VOTE BY MAIL EDUCATION IN PENNSYLVANIA” the mission statement for Pennsylvania Forward is “TO ADVOCATE FOR PROGRESSIVE POLICIES IN PENNSYLVANIA[.]”
The Voter Project’s 990 does not indicate any grants to any organizations that could arguably be characterized as right of center.
Deliver Strategies no longer publishes work biographies of its employees, nor of its extensive client list, which is exclusively Democratic candidates and left-of-center organizations, such as unions.
Mack did not return a request for comment on donations made by The Voter Project.
Almost any election is, by nature, a referendum on the incumbent. But the 2024 presidential election has two incumbents of sorts.
Incumbents generally have an automatic name recognition and fund-raising advantage. However, a challenger can triumph if the contest is about the incumbent’s shortcomings, Swiss political consultant Louis Perron explains in his new book “Beat the Incumbent: Proven Strategies and Tactics to Win Elections.”
President Biden is the actual incumbent going into a likely 2020 rematch with predecessor Donald Trump, who has been a de facto incumbent in the primary season, maintaining an overwhelming lead over Republican contenders.
“Every election is different, but every election is the same,” said Perron, who has advised campaigns in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Ukraine, Malaysia and the Philippines, ranging from mayoral to presidential candidates. “Candidates used to argue over opinions; now they argue over facts. But the basics of elections never change. Candidates have to have a strong message and good crisis management.”
He noted the two previous U.S. incumbents — Barack Obama and George W. Bush — mastered this in dispatching their challengers, John Kerry and Mitt Romney.
“Elections are naturally a referendum on the incumbent, but the challenger has to keep it as a referendum on the incumbent,” who earned a master’s degree in political management from George Washington University and a doctorate from the University of Zurich. “An incumbent has to be brutal and do damage to the challenger as Bush did and as Obama did.”
The book asserts the recommendations are applicable across various countries and political offices.
It also describes how Obama’s first campaign in 2008 painted opponent John McCain as a Republican insider tied to an unpopular incumbent as McCain tried to sell a maverick image; how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky managed to win a landslide despite being a first-time candidate for office; and how François Hollande never let the pressure off incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in winning the French presidency.
In laying out a blueprint, it would seem to have some similarities with the famous Allan Lichtman book “Keys to the Presidency,” which lays out a specific formula to predict which candidate wins. But the Perron book is also a how-to manual, rooted in history and political science, with chapter titles such as “The Secrets of Selling Change,” “The Best Challenger Campaign Messaging Ever,” and concluding with “Final Word and Checklist.”
After Iowa, GOP candidates learned the insurmountable difficulty of beating a de facto incumbent, but polls have shown New Hampshire is closer, depending on which poll you read.
“One reason Nikki Haley is a safer choice for Republicans in New Hampshire is because a challenger is better positioned if the election is a referendum on the incumbent,” he said.
He anticipates Trump will close the deal on the Republican nomination with a New Hampshire victory. However, New Hampshire might not hold the final say. He points to the 1976 Republican presidential primary as an example where a challenger can gain momentum late. In that case, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan challenged President Gerald Ford.
“Ford ultimately won, but it was very close,” he said. “What’s so surprising about 1976 is how long it took Reagan to catch steam. But once he did, he won a string of primary victories.”
In 1976, Ford won in Iowa, New Hampshire and four more contests and appeared likely to cruise to the nomination. Then Reagan turned the tide by winning North Carolina and several other states. The contest went back and forth, and it was a contested Republican National Convention, where Ford prevailed.
Still, the historical anomaly could prompt either Haley, a former United Nations ambassador, to hold out hope of unseating the quasi-incumbent Trump.
In a general election, Trump and Biden are so disliked that the “double haters” could decide the outcome, Perron said.
“If the focus is on Trump, Biden will win. If the focus is on Biden, Trump will win,” he said.
As we end the year and the 2022 election cycle, it is important that we look back at the most important lessons and takeaways. The next election is never too far away, and 2022 can teach us a lot of what success looks like for the Republican Party here in Southeast Pennsylvania in 2023.
First, let’s look at the results here in Bucks County. After years of failing to beat our Republican state representatives and senators at the ballot box, Democrats took it upon themselves to try and beat us through the redistricting process. The maps they produced were a blatant partisan power grab.
Despite the best efforts of Harrisburg Democrats, Bucks County elected five Republican state representatives and two Republican state senators this year. This represents a critical voting bloc in a Pennsylvania House which, as I write this, is under Democratic control by just a single seat. Maintaining this presence for our party in the House is just one of the keys to judging our success in 2022.
This success was due in no small part thanks to the next topic I’d like to discuss, which is candidate quality. This election proved that after all this time, candidate quality is still an absolutely crucial factor in a campaign’s success. Here in Bucks County, we were proud to have a wonderful slate of candidates up and down the ballot, who worked hard and fought every day to represent our community and its values.
When the new Pennsylvania House and Senate and U.S. Congress are sworn in, Bucks County will be home to the majority of Republican state representatives and senators in our region, and the only Republican congressman to represent the Delaware Valley. This is thanks in part to the quality of men and women who go out and make their case to their neighbors on behalf of themselves and the party.
The final important lesson we must take away from 2022, and one that I am hopeful we as a party are quickly learning, is the clear need to make better use of early voting. While I would like to see Act 77 repealed as much as the next person, we must recognize that early voting is not going away any time soon.
For too long, too many in our party refused to make use of early voting, whether in person at your local Board of Elections office, or by mail. Democrats start with hundreds of thousands of votes in the bank, and we spend just one day playing catch up. Here in Bucks County, we started an early vote program back in 2021, and have seen great success. It’s time to expand that across the Commonwealth.
As we all prepare for our county and local elections in 2023, we cannot soon forget the lessons from both our successes and failures in 2022. We know what we must do to win, and we are fired up and ready to go in the new year.
I hope you will indulge me for just a few moments to make a couple of other recommendations. I have got one for my Republican colleagues; I have got one for my Democratic colleagues—mostly for my Democratic colleagues— and two for this institution that we have had this privilege to serve in.
For my Republican colleagues, let me just say, our party can’t be about or beholden to any one man. We are much bigger than that. Our party is much bigger than that. We are the political representation of this huge center-right coalition across America. On a good day, that is more than half of Americans.
And I hope we resist the temptation to adopt the protectionist, nativist, isolationist, redistributive policies that some are suggesting we embrace. I think those are inconsistent with the core values of a majority of the people in this coalition. More importantly, I think those ideas lead to bad outcomes for our country.
For my Democratic colleagues, I have heard many of you passionately— and I believe sincerely—declare your determination to defend our democracy, but I would suggest we all remember that democracy requires much more than the ease of voting in an election.
Elections are absolutely necessary, but they are an insufficient condition for a truly democratic society. Elections really are a means to an end; they are not the end themselves. The end, or purpose, of elections is to provide the mechanism of account ability of the government to the people whose consent is our sole source of legitimacy.
When we hand over Congress’s responsibilities to unelected and, therefore, unaccountable parts of our government—be that the courts or independent regulators or executive branch agencies—we really undermine our democracy, which, of course, is really our Republic, because we weaken the accountability of our government.
Now, look, both sides have done this over time, but I would just hope we could all agree that preserving more responsibility and, therefore, accountability for the legislative branch of government is a good thing for our Republic.
And then two suggestions for this amazing, historic institution. The first one—and it is the most important one: Please keep the filibuster. It is the only mechanism that forces bipartisan consensus. It prevents government governance from the extremes. By forcing bipartisanship, it results in more durable legislation and so lessens the likelihood of big swings in policies. It provides stability for our constituents. And if you want to see more polarization, get rid of the filibuster and we will have much more polarization.
The second thought I had that I wanted to share with you is, I think we can all agree that the Senate has not been functioning as well as it once did and as it really should. I don’t think too many committees are producing too much legislation the old-fashioned way. The old-fashioned way was actually a pretty good vetting process for developing legislative ideas. And when legislation does get to the floor, typi- cally, there are very few substantive amendments that are allowed to be considered.
The result is, as a body, it is very difficult for us to discover whether and where there might be a consensus. I know there are a lot of reasons for this, including political polarization, reasons why the Senate behaves in a way that tends to block debate and voting.
But there might be some relatively modest tweaks in Senate rules that might just facilitate restoring some of what used to be normal functioning. I know a lot of you have done a lot of work in this and that work is still underway. Let me suggest you considerone small tweak, a small but important technical change to a rule, the rule which enables the obstruction of the body.
I am not talking about the filibuster but, rather, the rule that effectively requires unanimous consent, in most cases, to allow a vote on an amendment, any amendment, even a germane amendment.
I can tell you, most Pennsylvanians are very surprised to learn that in order for a Senator to get a vote on almost anything, he or she needs the permission of every other Senator. I don’t think this rule is workable any longer, and it contributes to the dysfunction.
So I have just got a simple idea: Consider raising the threshold for blocking an amendment to some number greater than one.
Now, I support the filibuster because I think it is reasonable for 41 Senators to be able to block legislation. It just doesn’t seem reasonable for one. So I don’t know what the right number is, and I am not religious about this. Maybe it is 10. Maybe it is 20. Maybe it is 50. But I would just suggest that this body consider somehow raising the bar of preventing the Senate from functioning. There may be better ways to do it, but that is one suggestion.
Let me conclude with this: You know, we have all inherited something really, really, truly special. I know we all appreciate that, the fact that we live in the greatest country in the history of humanity and that we serve in this amazing legislative body.
I suspect we all get asked—I know I get asked from time to time—some version of the question: How worried are you about our country’s future? And, often, there is some combination of national security, political polarization, and the future of our economy that is the primary concern of the people posing the question.
My short reply is usually: Look, we have gotten through much tougher times. But think about it. I think that is so true, and it is important to remember.
On national security, we have got real threats out there. Russia is obviously led by a violent, dangerous bully. The Chinese Communist Party is a rising and increasingly aggressive threat. But nowhere do we face the imminent threats that we faced during World War II and at several moments during the Cold War.
And we are polarized, and it is uncomfortable and it is problematic; but, in 1968, we had political assassinationsand cities were being burned down. And this Chamber, this very Chamber we are in right now, first opened its doors in 1859. Imagine living through the decade that followed that.
As for the economy, look, there are always risks to any economy. Ours is no exception. I think inflation is a significant problem. There is a possibility we have a recession next year. We have huge and growing national debt, and I think that is going to be a real challenge for us.
But I think it is worth remembering this: The vast majority of Americans have a much higher standard of living today than our parents did when they were our age. And a rising standard of living is, after all, the purpose of economic growth.
So I always answer that question about America’s future with the truth, and that is that, despite our challenges, I am extremely bullish on America. And I think my optimism is easily justified by our history.
America has always been able to survive and thrive, and America remains the greatest nation in the history of the world. If we keep on being Americans, we will remain the greatest nation on the planet.
Many Americans will spend October stoking fear and building tension, with no shortage of blood-curdling screams. Then there’s Halloween.
Over two years, more than $9 billion will be spent on Election 2022. Money will be thrown at Americans to get them to choose between political candidates and parties, just like it will be spent on Marvel costumes, candy corn and the rest. Between the midterm elections and Halloween celebrations, U.S. spending will total upward of $20 billion, dominating public discourse.
While Halloween spending is driven by market demand and impervious to criticism (as it should be), election-related spending drives some people crazy. Spending money to promote your ideas is far scarier than Halloween to those whose ideas your particular spending may oppose.
Campaign finance “reform” is now a priority of the Democratic Party, with End Citizens United spokesman Adam Bozzi claiming “it’s both good policy and good politics.” (Side note: End Citizens United, as a nonprofit organization, does not disclose its donors.)
The left’s insistence on shutting down free speech and free association is strangely obsessive when it comes to politics. It seems like only speech and association that has to do with the electoral system and the democratic process are worth condemning, despite the fact that they form the very foundations of our democracy.
What is democracy but your freedom to organize and communicate on behalf of your ideas? And yes, meaningful communication requires spending money — something Democrats have no problem with so long as their ideas are communicated.
But, as long as you’re not spending money on politics, it’s quite all right. And, yes, a Marvel Halloween is quite all right. Consumerism is a good thing, just like money in politics is a good thing. In fact, American politics needs more money in it, not less, because political spending is associated with the free flow of ideas. It reflects public discourse in the idea marketplace, with the most popular ones (like Marvel) dominating the discourse while the least popular ones (sorry Green Lantern) ultimately fade away. Similarly, candy choices with the most appeal attract the most consumer dollars, while the organic alternatives get thrown away.
That’s the whole point. The market is the ultimate freedom: Taking the product of your own hard work (or that of your parents) and spending it on whatever ideas — or candy — you may choose. In politics, good ideas attract money, just like sugary candy attracts the most kids.
Winning candidates and political parties draw attention from donors large and small. Of course, losing ones (i.e., Michael Bloomberg) can flood the political system with billions of dollars, but money is no guarantee of victory. Bloomberg knows that better than most, and plenty of candy ideas are just as flawed. But some people liked Bloomberg, and the “top 10 worst candies ever” list is admittedly rife with my childhood favorites!
So why shouldn’t we be free to choose, in any marketplace, what’s right for us?
No amount of money will get Americans to embrace ideas that aren’t actually popular, just like you can’t pay me enough to eat Hot Tamales for Halloween.
The amount of money in politics is a barometer of civic engagement writ large, and civic engagement is inherently beneficial to democracy. A democratic system can’t function without it. The more money spent, the more people are engaged, and the more ideas compete to curry favor in the marketplace. Like in the U.S. economy and on candy shelves, competition leads to greater consumer choice and personal freedom.
Here’s a tip leading to Election Day: Don’t listen to those crying wolf about political spending. Keep dressing up as Spiderman, keep eating your Skittles, and keep contributing to American democracy.
Free speech and free association are every bit as sweet as candy corn.
With only weeks until the important midterm elections, the acting secretary of state ordered counties to disregard a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court requiring mail-in and absentee ballot envelopes to be signed and dated.
On Oct. 11, acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman sent a directive to county election officials saying the high court’s order was “not based on the merits of the issue.”
“It provides no justification for counties to exclude ballots based on a minor omission and we expect that counties will continue to comply with their obligation to count all legal votes,” Chapman wrote in that directive.
The state and national Republican committees, along with some voters, are crying foul.
They filed a “King’s Bench” lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to order Chapman to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s order.
In a joint statement, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer, and Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas said, “As the Pennsylvania legislature and U.S. Supreme Court have made clear, undated mail-in ballots should not be counted. Republicans are holding Pennsylvania Democrats accountable for their brazen defiance of the (U.S.) Supreme Court and the rules duly set by the legislature. Pennsylvania Democrats have a history of election integrity failures and Pennsylvanians deserve better: this lawsuit is the latest step in Republican efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in the Keystone State.”
In May 2022 the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled ballots with undated envelopes should be counted. The issue stemmed from the close Republican primary that resulted in a lawsuit between Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.
The 3rd Circuit panel held that handwritten dates on the envelopes do not affect voters’ eligibility. Also, that court ruled voters’ civil rights would be violated if their ballots were tossed due to the omission of a date.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that finding and upheld Pennsylvania’s election law as written.
The mail-in ballots have been a bone of contention since Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed a law, Act 77 that permits no-excuse absentee ballots. While the legislature passed that law with a bipartisan vote, many Republican lawmakers now believe it should be changed, especially since former President Donald Trump blamed mail-in ballots and drop boxes as part of the reason he lost the state of Pennsylvania to President Joe Biden in 2020. However, court challenges to Act 77 have failed to overturn that law, which remains in place.
Wolf appointed Chapman as acting secretary in January. At that time, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McSwain, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, decried her as someone too partisan to be confirmed by the legislature. Chapman had previously worked for Deliver My Vote, which is nonpartisan under the tax code; McSwain noted its “founders are on record saying they are pushing mail-in voting to help Democrats” get elected. Deliver My Vote promotes mail-in balloting that “specifically favors Democrats,” said McSwain.
The GOP suit asks the court to order counties to segregate any undated ballots from ballots filed correctly. While some counties plan to do that, others do not which would result in “unequal treatment” of voters, violating the constitution.
“Any counting of ballots that the General Assembly has declared invalid—and the lack of statewide uniformity in the treatment of undated or incorrectly dated ballots—are eroding public trust and confidence in the integrity of Pennsylvania’s elections at a vital moment in the nation’s and the Commonwealth’s history,” the suit said. “The court therefore should take immediate action to uphold the General Assembly’s date requirement and to set aside the secretary’s invalid guidance.”
Liz Preate Havey, chair of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, said Montgomery County will segregate ballots with errors.
“It just leads to more and more distrust. We do have these drop boxes where we’ve seen time and time again, we have video, where over 100 people doing multiple drops in one election cycle. We’re just asking for reasonable election integrity measures to be in place,” said Havey. If there is a problem with someone’s mail-in ballot, they can go to their polling place and vote by provisional ballot.
“The Bucks County Board of Elections will segregate ballots arriving in misdated and undated envelopes. Those ballots will be included in reported vote totals, but will be scanned separately so those votes can be subtracted if necessary,” said a county spokesman.
James Allen, director of Voter Services for Delaware County said, “We will handle this the same way we did during the Primary. We will process the ballots from undated envelopes in a separate batch, so that if we receive yet another court ruling or different guidance from the Department of State, we would have the option to back out that batch.”
“It’s still too early to give a definitive answer on how Chester County will proceed. The Board is considering the status of the law in Pennsylvania and will make a decision soon,” said Rebecca Brain, a spokeswoman for the county.
Republican Guy Ciarrocchi, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Berks/Chester), criticized her for a voter education town hall with Chapman that Houlahan held on October 13.
“The chief elections’ official in Pennsylvania has defied the US Supreme Court—and, then directed every county join her in defiance. She then spoke at the Houlahan town hall—essentially a campaign event. Chapman has failed in her primary duty—to be an impartial election official to instill trust.
Houlahan has shown bad judgment in using taxpayers’ money for the event—and, compounded the error by having Chapman speak at her town hall. Sadly, Houlahan continues to act like a partisan politician; not the bipartisan problem solver she alleges in her ads. Actions speak louder than words,” Ciarrocchi said.
Houlahan’s campaign spokesperson, Shane Wolfe said, “This criticism is not only wrong on the merit, but seems to come from a place of misunderstanding the job of our public servants. The town hall had absolutely nothing to do with politics or campaigning. It did have to do with public servants doing their jobs to make themselves available and inform the public — regardless of party affiliation — about how to safely and securely exercise their right to vote. If election officials should not answer these questions now, when voters have questions, when should they?”
In a press release after the town hall, Houlahan said, “Representing a purple community means educating all community members, regardless of political affiliation, on how to cast their ballot. Last night, we had a straightforward conversation about the voting process and answered questions on a wide range of concerns. I will continue to share resources with all constituents who reach out, and I encourage all eligible Pennsylvanians to exercise their constitutional right to vote.”
It is a politically charged and divisive time in America. So, it’s rare when elected officials from both sides of the aisle come together and agree to enact changes that positively affect the American people.
But the Pennsylvania legislature just did.
It has passed, and Gov. Tom Wolf has signed, a new law that bans private money from being used for elections by state election officials in an unequal, unfair, political manner. Those dollars are commonly known as “Zuckerbucks.”
Voters across the country overwhelmingly want election integrity. Recent Rasmussen polling shows bipartisan support in the 80th percentile for measures like requiring photo I.D., cleaning up voter rolls, and mandating the return of all ballots to election officials by Election Day. That’s not surprising when you consider people on the political right, left, and everywhere in between have been complaining about the election process for decades.
And while the concerns about hanging chads and dimpled ballots of the 2000 presidential election have been replaced by fears about unsolicited mass mail-in ballots and unsecured, unmonitored ballot drop boxes, the American people’s faith, trust, and confidence in the election process are at all-time lows. In fact, only 53 percent are confident that American elections are conducted in a manner that ensures all votes are counted and that the proper winners are declared in each election.
Compelling testimony in Pennsylvania’s legislative committee hearings allowed members to learn about errors from past elections, review raw evidence regarding unequally allocated funds, and—something so few do—listen to the voices of their constituents. Elected officials there realized the need for voter protection measures and decided to act on it.
In response to these positive developments, America First Policy Institute’s Center for Election Integrity (CEI) upgraded Pennsylvania in its online, color-coded, interactive map. The commonwealth that once held a low ranking has now moved up.
CEI grades each state based on four significant election integrity measures: (1) photo identification requirements to vote, (2) returning ballots to election officials by election day, (3) the prohibition of ballot harvesting, and (4) the tiebreaker, banning Zuckerbucks. States are in the red category when few to none of these policies are in place, yellow means some have been implemented, and green states have most or all the policies in place. For a complete methodology regarding the map, click here.
The recent law is a step in the right direction as Pennsylvania has gone from red to yellow on the CEI map. But that does not yet make it a beacon of voter protection. In fact, the state must plug some significant policy holes to emerge as an election integrity leader and restore people’s trust in the election process. Issues widely reported in Delaware County illustrate precisely what must change if the state is to secure its elections better.
Local and national news reports showed in 2020, the county encountered a “wide array of problems with election integrity, including on-tape admissions that the election laws were not complied with, that 80 percent of provisional ballots lacked proper chain-of-custody, that there were missing removable drives for some of the voting machines, and that election workers ‘recreated’ new drives to respond to the Right to Know request.
A whistleblower’s hidden video shows significant interference by people identified as election officials in the county, including one man knowingly asking another person to commit “a felony.” Data there also show voting machines accepted and tallied ballots scanned from other precincts in the county, rendering ballot reconciliation impossible.
While there are obvious documented problems in Delaware County and beyond, they are fixable with good policy.
One of the most important policy measures to help achieve free, fair, and honest elections is requiring government-issued photo identification to vote. It’s supported by 85 percent of Americans because they understand simply proving you are who you say you are when you cast a ballot, helps protect every legal vote and every legal voter.
Some on the left claim this policy will “suppress turnout,” but the data from the 2022 primaries in Georgia shows the exact opposite. In early voting, there was a 168 percent increase from the 2018 gubernatorial primary and a 212 percent jump above the 2020 presidential primary in Georgia.
It’s clear the vast majority of Pennsylvanians support election integrity reforms. If their voices are heard and their concerns addressed, the Keystone state will ultimately be a place where it’s easy to vote but hard to cheat.