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To promote voting and preserve confidence in the process, Pennsylvania better revamp its election rules.
Observers of last week’s presidential primary found plenty of flaws and much about which to be disillusioned, and, no, we’re not talking about the candidates. From a confusing delegate-selection process, which conceivably can render meaningless the will of average voters, to the lack of modern conveniences, such as early voting, the Keystone State sticks out among its peers like a horse-drawn buggy at a NASCAR starting line. Ill-suited. Archaic. A total letdown.
Is it any wonder, aside from a presidential-year Trump-like bump, that voter participation continues to edge lower?
Pennsylvania only last year made the leap to online voter registration. Next, voters in both major political parties, and others, should insist that party officials as well as the state’s elected lawmakers act to bring the rest of the voting process into the 21st century. Make it modern. Make it transparent. And most of all, make it fair.
• Revise the delegate/superdelegate system. The national media this month scrutinized Pennsylvania’s Republican primary setup in particular, dubbing its delegate-selection system a byzantine mess.
“Rigged process? Wait till Trump sees how Pennsylvania picks delegates,” read the headline of an article from the McClatchy Washington Bureau. Online news and entertainment purveyor bustle.com proclaimed, “Pennsylvania’s Delegate Rules Are Pretty Weird. …”
A Los Angeles Times article appeared under this headline: “How are Pennsylvania’s GOP delegates selected? Most voters don’t have a clue.” “Though 71 (GOP) delegates are at stake in Pennsylvania, just 17 are bound by party rules to support the candidate who wins the primary here,” the article stated. “The vast majority, 54, will be up for grabs when they arrive in Cleveland to help choose a nominee.”
On the Democratic side, meanwhile, Pennsylvania voters pick 210 delegates, including 21 “superdelegates” who are free to vote for any candidate.
Anyone bugged by knowing their votes don’t necessarily carry much weight among delegates at the nominating convention should sound off to the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and party bosses closer to home.
• Expand voting opportunities. Why do Pennsylvanians still vote on Tuesdays instead of, say, Saturdays – when potentially more people would participate?
Why not allow early voting by mail? “Thirty-four states allow some type of early voting,” a Philadelphia Daily News editorial pointed out last week. “Pennsylvania is not among them.”
• Stop the chicanery that is redistricting.
In Pennsylvania, the party in power after each census, most recently the Republican Party, redraws the boundaries of congressional and other districts. Not surprisingly, the highly partisan process usually involves finding ways to cram more of the dominant party’s backers into a district, regardless of how nonsensical the boundaries become – a tactic known as gerrymandering.
Certain lawmakers in Harrisburg wisely concluded this game can’t continue without further damaging democracy, so they’ve introduced bills to reform redistricting. Read more about it at FairDistrictsPA.com.
Your civic duty doesn’t end after casting a ballot; stay involved in these and other efforts to ensure fair elections.