At the state and local level, there seems to be a full-scale attack on how our elections are administered, as politicians push policies intentionally designed to make it harder to vote, especially for Black and brown voters.
Westmoreland County’s Republican commissioners recently voted to eliminate regional drop boxes for mail-in ballots in next month’s primary election (“Westmoreland commissioners say costs, not politics, behind regional drop box cuts,” April 25, TribLIVE), leaving the county with just one location, a move counter to the expansion they put in place during the 2020 general election, when communities of color turned out in record numbers.
The commissioners’ move came just weeks after a state committee and the full Senate approved a bill to ban drop boxes entirely for mail-in ballots. With elections next week, politicians are pulling out all the stops to make the process harder and less convenient for eligible voters.
If lawmakers truly care about improving elections, as our county commissioners and state lawmakers contend, then they would allocate more money to county election offices and allow same-day voter registration, early in-person voting and automatic voter registration.
Instead, they continue to push partisan policies that do nothing to solve voters’ anxieties about not having the time to vote, standing in line for hours or ensuring mail-in ballots are received and counted.
Sharron Boddy-Adedipe
Pittsburgh
The writer is founder and CEO of Mothers of Incarcerated Sons.