From Keystone Votes (https://www.keystonevotes.org/):
The Senate State Government Committee this week voted along party lines to approve a bill that would ban drop boxes for mail-in ballots, a move that would make voting harder and less convenient for eligible voters in Pennsylvania.
The committee also approved two separate measures that would ban counties from accepting any third-party funds to help them administer their elections — without any corresponding measure to ensure that local election offices truly have the resources they need.
Funding for safe, secure, efficient elections is one of Keystone Votes’ priorities. The state needs to provide more resources for county election operations so they can purchase and implement electronic poll books to improve election security and accuracy by relying on real-time data and increase poll worker pay.
Funding is also critical to advance other reform measures that would make the election process more convenient and easier to access for all eligible voters, especially communities of color. That includes same-day voter registration and early in-person voting.
The push to ban drop boxes comes less than two weeks after the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee held a public hearing that perpetuated unfounded allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 general election, even though multiple independent official post-election reviews and dozens of bipartisan judges have verified the outcome of that election.
As Deidre Lesene of the Voter Empowerment Education & Enrichment Movement Pittsburgh told WITF 89.5 FM: “We want it to be as easy as possible to vote because there’s a distrust in democracy and this just adds to the distrust that [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] communities have.” She is pushing the state to give counties more money to run their elections instead of ditching things like drop boxes.
Scott Seeborg of All Voting Is Local argued for additional reforms, challenging the “fraud” narrative.
Both VEEEM and All Voting is Local are members of the nonpartisan Keystone Votes coalition, which, in addition to the policies mentioned here, also is pushing for automatic voter registration for eligible residents who interact with government programs and improved language access to serve the growing number of residents whose first language is not English.
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