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Mail ballots at the Allegheny County Election Division in 2020.
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Pa. could get an earlier presidential primary — if Harrisburg’s other election fights don’t get in the way

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Pa. could get an earlier presidential primary — if Harrisburg’s other election fights don’t get in the way

Partisan disagreements have stalled many other proposed election law changes, and lawmakers sometimes have tied issues together.

HARRISBURG — Top lawmakers in both parties want to prevent a proposal to change the date of Pennsylvania’s presidential primary from getting tangled up with other election-related issues that have long been subjects of partisan bickering.

Current law sets the state’s 2024 primary on April 23, relatively late in the national primary calendar and also in conflict with the first full day of Passover. Gov. Josh Shapiro and many lawmakers want to change that to avoid the conflict with the Jewish holiday, and many also want to give Pennsylvania more national clout with an earlier nominating contest.

A new bipartisan bill being considered in the state Senate would shift the primary from the fourth Tuesday in April to the third Tuesday in March. But partisan disagreements have stalled many other proposed election law changes over the last few years, and lawmakers sometimes have tied issues together.

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Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, said Friday that the date-change proposal should be kept separate from more contentious issues, such as stricter voter ID requirements and allowing for the earlier processing of mail ballots. 

Pennsylvania's Senate State Government Committee meets Tuesday in Harrisburg, where approved a measure intended to add teeth to the state;s Right-to-Know Law. Shown at the meeting are state Sens. Cris Dush, upper left, Anthony Williams, upper right, and Pat Stefano, bottom right.
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“I think this is a standalone bill. I think this is something we can all agree on,” she said. “I don’t think that those issues stop this important piece of legislation from moving forward.”

Sen. Jay Costa, D-Allegheny and the Democratic minority leader, agreed.

“We cannot have these other matters bog down the change of the election date and I think that is what’s going to be important,” Mr. Costa said. “Those other matters may need to wait for another day.”

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Picking a new primary date has its own challenges.

The typical Pennsylvania election calendar establishes a date 13 weeks before the primary as the start of a three-week window for candidates to gather signatures to get on the ballot. Applying that schedule to the bill proposed by Sens. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, and Dave Argall, R-Schuylkill, would indicate a date of Dec. 19 to start collecting signatures — meaning candidates would be knocking on doors during the Christmas-New Year’s holiday period.

That’s at least part of the reason, Mr. Costa said, that other new primary dates are being discussed. “There is consensus building around April 2,” Mr. Costa said. “April 2 seems to be a date we may land on.”

State Sen. Joe Pittman, R-Indiana and the Senate Republican leader, said the conflict with the Jewish holiday calls for a “hard look” at moving the primary to an earlier date. But, Mr. Pittman said, “Before any changes take place, we must have a clear understanding of the impact this change would have on other election-related deadlines, which are part of the process.”

Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-Erie, and Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Montgomery, spoke on Wednesday in the state Capitol about their new bill that would end Pennsylvania's system of closed primary elections.
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Ms. Ward said her main concern is giving Pennsylvania more relevance in the presidential primary calendar. “The biggest focus for me is making sure Pennsylvania matters,” she said.

Either date — March 19 or April 2 — would give the state a higher national profile in the major-party primary sequence. As it stands now, both parties often have effectively picked their candidates by late April.

The longstanding disagreements over other election issues were clear in Harrisburg in the past few weeks, as Republicans and Democrats continued to clash on things such as pre-canvassing, the process of preparing mail ballots to be tabulated earlier.

Under state law, local elections officials can’t open mail ballot envelopes until polls open at 7 a.m. on election day. In the 2020 presidential election, that led to a days-long delay before Pennsylvania’s results were known.

In the years since, a bipartisan cast of local elections officials have asked lawmakers to be allowed to start the process earlier. Democrats have pushed to make that change by itself, while Republicans have pushed to couple it with other changes such as voter ID requirements. 

On April 24, the Democratic-controlled House State Government Committee voted along party lines to advance a bill allowing counties to begin pre-canvassing seven days before an election. 

“This is the bill that the people that do the elections asked for,” state Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre and the committee chair, told colleagues. “This will save man hours, this will save time.”

But Rep. Brad Roae, R-Crawford and the committee’s top Republican, said in an interview Friday that the dynamics of the pre-canvassing debate have changed after last November’s general election. The counties, he said, for the first time got $45 million in state grants. With that new money to hire more staff, ballots were counted in a timely fashion, Mr. Roae said.

“There is no reason to do pre-canvassing,” Mr. Roae said. “It is absolutely unnecessary.”

FORD TURNER: fturner@post-gazette.com

First Published: May 8, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: May 8, 2023, 12:52 p.m.

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