Often, changing a law is all about politics — especially when it has to do with the big issues that make headlines. In recent years, there is no issue that gets more attention than elections.
How people register. How they vote. How those votes are counted and where and for whom. All of them have been the focus of reform proposals and protests. Even when they are mutually agreed upon, they can become problems. In Pennsylvania, the changes made to mail-in voting in 2019 with bipartisan support became the eye of the presidential election storm in 2020.
But sometimes, they are simply common sense, even if the key players are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
Take Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and state Rep. Seth Grove, R- York.
On Tuesday, as Keystone State voters went to the polls, Wolf was on KDKA Radio assuring the interviewer he had, in fact, cast a ballot. He took advantage of that no-excuse mail-in option.
”My wife actually dropped it off in person,” he said.
Whoops. That’s a no-no. State law doesn’t allow someone else to drop off your ballot, just as you couldn’t deputize someone to show up at the polls and vote for you in person. It’s a measure that prevents the kind of ballot harvesting shenanigans that led to a North Carolina GOP operative being charged with a felony in 2019.
It’s also something Grove would like to see changed under legislation he proposed. Wolf vetoed a reform proposal from Grove in June.
Now, though, a spokesperson for the governor calls the fact that he had first lady Frances Wolf do the job for him an honest mistake.
First, let’s address the obvious. It is less a mistake than an assumption by someone who should know better.
The rules about how mail-in voting is done have been famously and intensely debated over the last two years. Wolf signed the legislation that changed the rules. And even if all that weren’t true, there are a staggering number of lawyers working for the state who should have been able to prevent this unforced error. This is like a state cop claiming he didn’t know he was speeding.
But set that aside. Grove is correct. There is no reason that your wife shouldn’t be able to take your signed, dated and double-sealed ballot envelope to drop off at a government office. Why do we trust a postman to do so but not your spouse? Isn’t that different than a party worker collecting dozens or hundreds of ballots?
Clearly Wolf agrees or he wouldn’t have asked his wife to do so.
Sometimes change is about politics. Sometimes it’s just about getting a job done. It would be nice if elected officials could learn the difference.
— The Tribune-Review/TNS
