Editorial: Ballot drop boxes make voting easier

For the past three years, how Pennsylvanians vote has been discussed in committees, debated on the floor of the Legislature and taken into court. It’s been just as hot a topic on television, in corner bars and at the dinner table.

A big part of that has been about no-excuse mail-in ballots. They were permitted under Act 77, the 2019 election reform that had broad bipartisan support. It was heavily utilized in 2020 during the primary and general elections amid the coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

Now, with the second general election of Act 77’s reforms just a couple of weeks away, Southwestern Pennsylvania counties are prepping for another test of the system.

In Westmoreland County, that has included a drop box for the mail-in ballots at the courthouse starting Monday and five other regional locations during the weekends leading up to Election Day on Nov. 2. These will provide an extra ease to the process for those like the 21% of voters who availed themselves of the mail-in option a year ago.

In Allegheny County, on the other hand, there will not be drop boxes. County Executive Rich Fitzgerald says he does not intend to use them this year or in what promises to be a hotly contested midterm and gubernatorial election in 2022.

Instead, he wants to rely on the boxes that already are scattered around the communities — mailboxes.

This is a big switch. Could it be setting up another situation like the two counties saw with the state Senate’s 45th district in 2020, when they each decided to interpret the rules regarding mail-in ballots in different ways? In that case, it was about whether undated ballots were legal, and it led to the results in that case dragging on past the day the rest of the Senate was sworn into office.

It also comes as the U.S. Postal Service is openly stating that mail will take longer to get where it’s going. Local mail still is supposed to make the journey in two days, but it still seems like a bad time to place an extra burden on a taxed system rather than doing what the county could do on its own to ensure the collection of ballots.

Councilwoman Bethany Hallam cited the success of the boxes in 2020 and says she will push for their return.

The 2020 election involved more people in the electoral process than ever before. That’s an involvement that should be encouraged and facilitated.