Susan Carty is president of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. Ray Murphy is state coordinator for Keystone Votes, a nonpartisan coalition working to modernize and improve Pennsylvania’s voting system.

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The General Election is just two days away, and while municipal elections don’t generate the same kind of intensity and turnout that presidential elections do, every election matters, and it’s critical, especially in our current political climate, that citizens have faith in the security and integrity of the electoral process.

Voting is a sacred right, and any question in voters’ minds that their votes will count has the potential to fatally undermine this cornerstone of American life. Fortunately, in Pennsylvania, our election system works well, but there are steps we can take to make it work even better.

Investment in both hardware and software is essential.

The single most important thing the Legislature can do is to help all 67 counties buy new, modern and secure voting machines to replace those that are now almost 20 years old. Updating technology is the best way to guarantee the integrity of the election process and protect it from outside interference.

Also of importance is demonstrating to voters that their votes indeed are being captured and counted as they intended, and that the outcomes are correct. According to security experts, voting machines with a voter-verifiable ballot and/​or a backup paper ballot are key to ensuring that our elections are secure and their results are accurate.

Another issue is that some qualified voters still face challenges in casting a ballot. Modernizing election technology and ensuring that all eligible citizens are able to vote — particularly seniors, veterans, voters with disabilities and working people, all of whom often face obstacles in our voting process — should be top priorities.

The Department of State also should use its existing statutory authority to ensure that every eligible voter who registers is added to the rolls on time or given an explanation as to why he or she was not added. Last year, more than 25,000 valid voter registrations were delayed until just days before the election. Many more were simply lost.

Other states have already taken commonsense steps to update their election systems, so we already know from experience that these types of changes work, that they are cost effective and that they help preserve the integrity of our elections. Equally important, they have garnered broad support from Republicans and Democrats alike.

And that’s what we need — all sides coming together to focus on solutions.

Unfortunately, there’s still too much partisan bickering, including recent complaints about registrations by non-citizens. The relatively few non-citizens who have registered did so inadvertently because of an error at state drivers’ license centers, and many took proactive steps to address the issue when they discovered the problem.

The Department of Transportation should continue to work with the Department of State to prevent this from happening and to bring elections into the 21st century. But let’s also keep things in perspective: According to the Department of State, the 544 ballots cast by possible non-citizens between 2000 and 2017, when Pennsylvania held 35 elections with a total of 93.6 million votes cast, represented only .00000581 percent of those ballots.

We all want accurate voter rolls and clean elections. But we firmly believe it is equally important for the commonwealth to do everything in its power to ensure that all of its citizens have the opportunity to participate fully and equally in civic life. The vast majority of Pennsylvanians also are worried about declining voter-participation rates.

Commonsense updates such as optional vote-by-mail, early voting and same-day registration would get more people voting regularly. Our voting system needs to accommodate new realities and reflect the needs of today’s citizens.

Only then will we have a system that lives up to the cherished American ideal of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

First Published: November 5, 2017, 4:00 a.m.