Editor:
As a longtime Delaware County poll worker and member of the League of Women Voters, I laughed when I read House Republican leader Bryan Cutler’s comment that 73% of the people support voter ID while (only) 50% support earlier pre-canvassing of mail-in ballots.
The public is largely unaware of the state voter ID requirements already in place and doesn’t know the nuts and bolts of the process to count mail-in ballots, so, of course, more of those polled are going to approve of “voter ID” and fewer of them are going to approve of “earlier pre-canvassing.”
Many voters are unaware that Pennsylvania already has an excellent system of voter identification. All residents registering to vote for the first time must prove they are citizens of the U.S. and residents of the state and voting precinct when they register. They must show ID at the polls when they are voting at their precinct for the first time.
This information is stored and is used to verify voters’ qualifications each time they move, change their names or change their parties. Once they’ve done it the first time, voters don’t have to prove over and over again throughout their civic lives that they are citizens.
The full-scale adoption of electronic poll books for the first time in the recent Delaware County primary election has greatly sped up the check-in process. A requirement that voters show ID every time they vote would just slow it back down again and is not necessary.
State law already recognizes at least a dozen forms of identification, including fishing licenses, college-issued student IDs and utility bills to prove address.
However, several pending Republican voter ID bills would require a “state-issued ID,” meaning a photo ID issued by a PennDOT facility or county courthouse. Some rural counties do not even have a PennDOT office.
A “state-issued ID” requirement would exclude college-issued student IDs, in keeping with the efforts by some politicians to make it as difficult as possible for students to vote. That’s called voter suppression, not voter security.
Opposition to earlier pre-canvassing — starting before election day to prepare mail-in ballots for counting — is aimed at discouraging mail-in voting, as are bills to eliminate drop boxes, which are more secure than mailboxes.
Both voting by mail and voting in person are extremely secure, with layers and layers of safeguards, of which, again, the public is largely unaware. Incidents of voter fraud are vanishingly small and virtually always tried by individual voters. They are never any organized effort to affect an election outcome.
All that Republican Senate efforts to add a voter ID requirement to the pre-canvassing bill passed by the House will accomplish is to kill the bill and deprive county election officials, including in Republican-controlled counties, of a much-needed tool to deliver the safe, fair and efficient elections all voters want.
Jodine Mayberry, Brookhaven