Republicans, Democrats and independents all have an equal interest in ensuring that elections are conducted fairly, that the voter lists are accurate and that every eligible citizen is able to vote.
Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1429 aims to do exactly that.
This legislation would improve the Commonwealth’s procedure for keeping voter registration records by mandating that they be regularly reviewed and by allowing counties to use more information to spot registrations which may no longer be valid.
This timing is especially relevant since the Pennsylvania Department of State recently announced that the counties are carrying voter list maintenance ahead of the November election.
Registrations can be placed in inactive status or canceled when a voter is no longer eligible. That is why maintaining accurate voter rolls is an ongoing process. Good election administration means keeping voter rolls accurate while protecting every eligible voter’s ability to cast a ballot. The question is if Pennsylvania can make this process even more consistent and transparent.
That is where Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1429 can help improve the current system.
This legislation would require counties to review their voter lists at least once every year and introduce a more thorough method for spotting cases where registrations might no longer be valid. It would also broaden the range of records that could be used in these reviews to include data from federal databases, information from Social Security, records from other states, and Pennsylvania records relating to people who had been excluded from jury service because they were not U.S. citizens.
The bill also increases accountability by requiring counties to certify that the necessary list maintenance activities have been carried out and to provide information regarding the notices sent, the voters who have been moved to inactive status and the registrations that have been removed.
People change their names and update their details, and the records may also be out of date or contain errors. Which is why sorting out the voter list is not about removing names but instead involves carefully checking the information, verifying what is correct, and ensuring that anyone who is eligible is not inadvertently deleted.
A state audit carried out in April into Pennsylvania’s Motor Voter system concluded that the system as a whole functioned in accordance with its intended purpose, although it did discover a human error which enabled a noncitizen to apply for a vote. That audit does not indicate that there has been widespread voting by noncitizens. On the contrary, it shows an important lesson: even when a system works well it is still worthwhile having extra oversight.
Pennsylvania should regularly check its voter lists against reliable records, inform voters of this, give people the chance to correct errors, and clearly report on what the various counties are doing. SB 1429 helps strengthen that framework and instill trust in the election process.
