Editorial: Competence versus rhetoric in Pennsylvania elections
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There is nothing as important as our electoral process.
Elections have to be safe. They have to be secure. They have to be easy and accessible. All of that can seem a little contradictory at times. Does making the process encouraging prevent it from being secure? Does making it safe lock it down too much to have everyone participate?
It’s a fine line to walk. It has also become a very political line, with one side preaching security and the other advocating openness.
With all that in mind, it underscores what is possibly the most important aspect: competence. There has never been a time when it is more important to have elections run by people who understand the boots-on-the-ground requirements.
Pennsylvanians vote at least twice a year. In a non-presidential year, that means going to the polls (or mailing a ballot) in May for the primaries and November for the general election. In 2023, there will be a third election thrown in for the three state House districts that will be vacant: the late Tony DeLuca’s 32nd, new U.S. Rep. Summer Lee’s 34th and new Lt. Gov. Austin Davis’ 35th.
That means a maximum of six months to prepare for voting — often while still counting the ballots and putting out the fires from the previous election. That short timeline makes the learning curve all the steeper.
It is a minor miracle that this ever happens without a hitch. It requires equipment maintenance, securing the locations, printing the mail-in ballots, preparing the day-of ballots, hiring and training enough poll workers, and meeting all of the deadline dates.
When this doesn’t happen, it can have a huge impact.
When the Pennsylvania Department of State screwed up in 2021, missing an advertising date for a ballot question about changing a sexual abuse law, it meant that question couldn’t go in front of voters.
A Votebeat story showed that this year, Luzerne County precincts had an even more basic failing. They ran out of paper for the ballots, prompting an emergency order to keep polls open later.
These are big problems. They get attention. There are a million little ones that need to be handled between primary and general and primary again every year. Some are someone’s fault. Others are just dumb luck. No matter how they happen, they require a competent, knowledgeable, experienced response to not become big problems.
Democrats and Republicans both need to focus on the importance of competence in doing the job rather than the rhetoric of questioning the process.