Patience, not political ploys, needed for Election Day

The following was written by the Allegheny County House Democratic delegation listed below.

Pennsylvania will be a key battleground state in this election, and we all can agree: Every citizen 18 years of age or older has the right to vote safely (in person or by mail) and should vote, and every vote must be counted.

Many people will vote in person — please do so safely. Many others will vote by mail. Voting by mail is not new to our country. Several Democratic- and Republican-leaning states alike have been conducting vote-by-mail elections for years. Either option is valid and secure.

Due to covid-19, election experts are predicting that a large percentage of people will vote by mail. Current law does not allow pre-canvassing — things like opening envelopes, checking voter eligibility, flattening ballots — to begin in any way before Election Day. Therefore, given the time necessary to count mail-in ballots, it is entirely possible that we may not know the complete results that night, or even the next morning.

Please be patient. There is absolutely no requirement that the results be announced for the 11 p.m. news, or even the morning news the following day. There never has been. The only requirement is that every vote must be counted.

Recently, House Republicans moved to rush through legislation that would’ve created a select committee to investigate our elections. Their choice to draft this resolution, giving the hand-picked, majority run committee the power to subpoena election workers and impound ballots, without Democratic input, was dubious at best.

Thankfully, it appears that they are now backing off such a partisan path, and we hope they will instead return to the negotiating table to pass the common sense election reforms that county leaders from both sides of the aisle have been asking for. It is still not too late to improve our election operation, and we can do it in a way that increases voter confidence rather than undermining it.

We still wait to hear from the Republican leadership that there will be no attempt to disenfranchise millions of Pennsylvanian voters by creating their own partisan slate of electors. The attack by many of their members on the vote by mail system is surprising, given that almost every Republican in the General Assembly voted to create it. To refuse to help counties manage a system of their own creation leads some to question whether dodging responsibility is part of a greater plan.

Attacks designed to delegitimize institutions must stop. The best way to make it stop is to vote. The larger the victory - for any candidate - the better.

There is still time to register to vote and to apply to vote by mail. If you do vote by mail, be sure to use the secrecy envelope and complete the voter declaration. If you choose to vote in person, the polls are open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Nov. 3.

Be patient. Stay safe. Make sure you vote, and let’s remember that we have much more in common than we do apart.

Allegheny County House Democratic delegation members who submitted this piece are Rep. Dan Miller, chairman, and Reps. Dan Frankel, Austin Davis, Dan Deasy, Ed Gainey, Bill Kortz, Brandon Markosek, Summer Lee, Jake Wheatley and Sara Innamorato.