Roe warriors: Supreme Court abortion ruling spurs increase in women registering to vote

Bethel Park’s Erin Burlew switched her party registration from Republican to Democrat a day after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“Our parties need to meet in the middle, but instead the (Republicans) have gone extreme,” the former longtime Republican said, explaining that she leans to the left on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights but leans right when it comes to welfare programs because she thinks they need more stringent oversight.

Burlew hasn’t been alone in taking action in response to the high court’s Roe v. Wade decision. While it cleared the way for abortion bans to be imposed across the country, it also spurred many voters — particularly women — to rethink their politics.

From the time the Supreme Court’s decision was leaked on May 2 through late August, more than 47% of the new voters who registered in Pennsylvania were women, while 41% were men, according to the Democratic polling firm Target Smart. (It’s optional for voters to provide their gender in Pennsylvania. About 12% of the new voters who registered from May 2 through late August left their gender information blank.)

Before the leak, men made up more than 45% of new voters who registered this year, about 2.5 percentage points higher than new women voters, Target Smart said.

University of Pittsburgh history professor Lara Putnam said abortion bans enacted after the Supreme Court decision and the possibility of future bans in Pennsylvania motivated people who don’t normally vote in midterm elections.

“People who had not thought of themselves as particularly political are now voting because abortion (rights are) important to them and they probably didn’t think it was at risk before Roe was overturned,” she said.

The League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh said it saw the number of new members joining more than double between May and September compared with the same period last year.

Since the Supreme Court decision was leaked, 54% of Pennsylvania’s newly registered women voters registered as Democrats compared with 22% who became Republicans, according to Target Smart.

Democrats also had an edge with men, with 38% of the newly registered men registering as Democrats and 33% as Republicans, Target Smart said.

Jefferson County’s Bobbi Erickson helped organize protests and start a grassroots political group after the Supreme Court decision. The group, Indivisible: Mayday, now has more than 600 members.

Erickson, 32, who has three children and works part time in a school cafeteria, said she has never been this politically active before.

“If you look at my calendar before Roe was overturned, it was to make snacks for my kids’ soccer game. Now it is to send out hundreds of postcards and organize rallies,” she said.

The reversal of Roe v. Wade is among the issues that has drawn together four women from Scottdale who are part of a group of more than 25 women from the border of Westmoreland and Fayette counties who have met in the Scottdale Public Library three times since July to share their concerns about the November election.

Retired business owner Audra Shenk is concerned about voter turnout in November and said those who continue to deny the validity of the 2020 presidential election have driven her to take action.

“That’s what’s motivated me to talk to my neighbors, to knock on doors and to carry around voter registration forms,” she said.

Shenk switched from the GOP to the Democratic fold in the early 1990s and said the reversal of Roe v. Wade is “something that was taken away from what we had. It has really energized women to do whatever is important to them.”

Putnam said newly registered voters are just a small slice of the more than 8.7 million people registered to vote in Pennsylvania.

Through Sept. 26 of this year, about 94,500 people became newly registered voters while nearly 130,000 changed parties or affiliations, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.

“I did not assume that the (Supreme Court) decision would make a visible shift, but there is just a sea change and it is very striking,” Putnam said.

From the start of the year until the Supreme Court issued its decision on June 28, Republicans in Pennsylvania had netted 35,700 voters when accounting for voters changing parties, new registrants and inactive voters being removed from the rolls, according to Putnam, who analyzed the state data. During that same period, Democrats lost 18,700 voters, she said.

Since then, Democrats have made small gains compared with Republicans, reversing a three-year trend. Democrats gained over 11,800 registered voters after the Supreme Court decision, compared with more than 10,200 for Republicans.

Burlew was one of those voters.

While she said it’s “still just so hard to say that I am a registered Democrat,” she said, “Right now, I am supporting (Democrats) straight down the ballot. And it really is all because of Roe v. Wade.”

Scottdale’s Mary Jo Santimyer is a retired nurse. She joined her husband, Bud, as a Democratic committee member in the borough’s Fourth Ward, out of concern about this year’s election and what the results could mean for the rights of women and other groups.

“I don’t want to see my granddaughter have to fight for what we fought for 50 years ago,” she said, referring to Roe v. Wade. “I think it’s not going to end there. It’s going to be gay rights and then it’s going to be birth control.”

Kay Shipley and Alexandria Hollis, both of Scottdale, said abortion rights are a top concern.

“I want women to be able to make their own choice and not have somebody tell them what they can do with their body,” Shipley said.

Hollis, a pharmacist, organized a Sept. 22 march in her hometown in support of reproductive rights. Though just a handful of people took part in the demonstration, more gathered afterward at a local coffee shop to write letters to lawmakers in support of their cause.

“Scottdale is a relatively conservative area” Hollis said. “I was trying to provide a space where people might share their thoughts and opinions and know they’re not alone.”

Raised in a Republican home, Hollis switched parties several years ago, and she is more vocal about her concerns.

“It feels more important to me than it has in the past,” she said. “I’m trying to get more people to exercise their right to vote. Hopefully, we’ll see good outcomes in November.”

Scranton’s Carol Tolerico said she switched from Republican to Democrat before the May primary. Even though the Supreme Court hadn’t rendered its decision as of then, she said she expected it would be overturned after the death of former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 2020.

“Come November, I am voting for every Democratic person on the ballot,” Tolerico, 61, said. “I would have never committed to a vote like that before this.”

While Democrats have made small gains, Putnam said there was a net registration gain of more than 17,000 for independents and minor parties in the 13 weeks following the Supreme Court decision. In the first six months of 2022, independents and minor parties had only netted about 1,800 registered voters, she said.

“Republican gains had been so steady, and that had been true across the state, but since late June that has ground to a halt,” Putnam said.

Staff Writer Jeff Himler contributed to this story.