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EDITORIAL: Proposals to encourage voting make good sense

4 min read
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If it’s jumping through hoops that you enjoy, voting in this country is for you. Though some improvements have been made over the years, it’s still more difficult than it needs to be to register and cast your ballot in Pennsylvania and elsewhere around the nation.

Members of the Democratic caucus in the state House of Representatives are trying to change that, introducing a wide variety of bills to simplify and improve our voting system.

Among the proposals:

  • Ending one-day-only elections by allowing Pennsylvanians to cast their ballots up to a month ahead of election days at designated locations. So-called early voting is prevalent across the country, but not here. It could help eradicate some of the long lines we see at polling places for certain elections.
  • Allowing voters to send their ballots by mail. This proposal calls for every registered voter to receive a ballot in the mail. Again, this could eliminate the backups on election days and also increase participation, which has been seen in states that have mail-in voting, including Oregon, Washington and Colorado.
  • Providing absentee ballots to anyone who wants one, no questions asked. Currently, folks who want to obtain an absentee ballot have to provide a reason for their inability to vote at the polls, such as being out of the area on election days or unable to get to voting locations. This bill would make absentee ballots more readily available, as they should be.
  • Adjust the time frame for return of absentee ballots to give people more time to submit them.
  • Require employers to offer paid or no-fault unpaid leave to allow workers to go to their polling places.
  • Making both the primary and general election days holidays in Pennsylvania. If Presidents Day and Columbus Day are holidays, we certainly could give people time off to exercise one of their most important rights as citizens. We could even do away with Presidents Day and Columbus Day to accommodate this.
  • Same-day voter registration. Currently, those who wish to vote in an election must register weeks in advance. This bill would allow would-be voters to show up on the day of an election, register to vote and cast provisional ballots. One has to wonder why this isn’t already done.
  • Give the power of law to Gov. Tom Wolf’s 2015 executive action allowing online voter registration. This should not be allowed to become a political football down the road.
  • Automatic registration for every qualified citizen who interacts with state government, such as when they get a driver’s license or register for some type of state benefit.
  • Several bills are calling for more light to be shed on so-called “dark money” to “see who’s behind those negative TV commercials, web ads and robo calls.” Those who are slinging mud or telling lies about a candidate should not be permitted to hide behind anonymity.
  • A proposal to require all candidates on the ballot for president of the United States and governor of Pennsylvania “to release their tax returns so the people can know about any financial issues that might conflict with serving the people.”

It’s hard to fathom why anyone would oppose these common-sense measures, unless they are more interested in suppressing votes than encouraging them.

With Republicans in charge of both houses of the Legislature, we’ll be interested to see how these proposals by Democratic lawmakers are received.

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