Gov. Wolf describes having wife drop off ballot as honest mistake

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said his mail-in ballot was dropped off by his wife before Tuesday’s election despite a state law requirement that voters deliver them in person.

Wolf’s spokeswoman Beth Rementer called it an honest mistake.

“I did vote, actually I voted by mail,” Wolf said Tuesday on KDKA radio. When an interviewer told him the ballot was due in the York County elections office by the end of Election Day, he said first lady Frances Wolf delivered it.

“My wife actually dropped it off personally two weeks ago, so it’s there,” he said.

The interview segment was highlighted Thursday in a tweet by state Rep. Seth Grove, a York County Republican who has spent much of the past year working on an Election Code revamp. In June, Democrat Wolf vetoed an election reform bill Grove sponsored.

“It’s law,” Grove said in a text exchange Thursday. “You can’t hand in more than 1 ballot.” He said Frances Wolf dropping off the governor’s mail-in ballot would have been legal had his bill been enacted.

State law requires voters who do not mail their absentee or mail-in ballot to “deliver it in person to (their) county board of election,” although with pre-approval others can do it under certain circumstances.

Security around mail-in ballot drop boxes became an issue in last year’s hotly contested presidential election, with Republicans saying they make it possible for people to put multiple ballots in them in contravention of the legal requirement.