Pa. leaders should spend money on improving our elections, not trying to expose problems that don’t exist

The cost of running elections has only become more expensive in recent years. Last week, Philadelphia elections chief Lisa Deeley asked lawmakers to allocate more money to elections in advance of the November midterms for U.S. Senate and governor seats, and the primary in May. Counties urgently need this funding to run their elections.

Unfortunately, when it comes to election funding, many officials have their priorities mixed up.

In 2021, elected officials in Harrisburg wasted $270,000 of taxpayer money on sham election reviews in search of problems with voting machines, mail ballots, and drop boxes that don’t exist. They also spent untold thousands on litigation designed to kill Act 77, Pennsylvania’s bipartisan law allowing voting by mail. Others in our state’s capital are attempting to restrict access to mail-in voting, which helped turn out a record number of voters — more than 6.8 million in Pennsylvania in total — during the 2020 presidential election.

And we certainly don’t need lawmakers making it tougher for hardworking Pennsylvanians to vote by removing ballot drop boxes from government building lobbies.

We need instead for lawmakers to put our money where it’s needed to ensure that county officials have the resources to run Pennsylvania’s elections efficiently and effectively.

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Election offices face a constant need to modernize and maintain equipment like voting machines, as well as machines that open, sort, and scan mail ballots. In addition, these offices need to hire and retain staff, recruit volunteers, provide stipends for the use of nonmunicipally-owned polling locations, and transport voting machines and privacy booths. Pennsylvania counties are having to find ways to fund elections while also facing budget shortfalls.

Election offices are already straining under the pressures of the last two years. Operating during a pandemic is hard enough, but many of our election officials have suffered attacks and abuse — including death threats — at the hands of conspiracy theorists and those who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen.

This harassment has taken a toll. A recent poll by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found that 20% of local election officials were unlikely to stay in their jobs through 2024. One in six of the polled election officials reported that they had been threatened personally, and the majority felt that local government was not doing enough to support them.

This is a crisis that not enough people are talking about — and one the General Assembly seems to be ignoring.

Pennsylvanians’ fundamental right to participate in our democracy — to make our voices heard on the need for jobs, health care, roads, and many other vital issues — hinges on the ability of our election administrators to do their job.

The very least that lawmakers could do is support the operation of polling locations in the commonwealth’s 67 counties. That’s why it’s imperative that Pennsylvania’s lawmakers invest $18 million annually into supporting each county’s electoral operations. That figure amounts to about $1,000 for each of the state’s 9,159 precincts for each primary and general election. These supplemental funds could be used to boost the pay for the five poll workers required to run in-person polling places by $100, and support training and recruitment.

That works out to be $2.05 per registered voter each year. Rather than worry about the cost of doing this, lawmakers should be more concerned about the costs of not doing this. The ability to have free and fair elections in Pennsylvania is at stake. Surely we can spend more per voter than the price of a fancy coffee.

Instead of passing laws that would make it harder for people to make their voices heard or grandstanding in order to stir the partisan divide, it’s time for our lawmakers to take their jobs seriously, and protect our freedom to vote.

Scott Seeborg is the Pennsylvania state director of All Voting is Local.