No bipartisan fix to Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting in sight

| 26 Aug 2020 | 04:18

Pennsylvania. (AP) A bipartisan fix to glitches in Pennsylvania’s new mail-in voting law remained just a glimmer Tuesday ahead of the November presidential election, as Republican leaders in the state Senate introduced legislation that Democrats quickly opposed as restricting access to voting. The proposal comes against a backdrop of President Donald Trump telling Republican National Convention delegates Monday that he’ll only lose if the election is “rigged,” criticizing mail-in voting as a “scam” and suing in federal court to undo certain vote-counting, collection and observation practices in Pennsylvania. The Republicans’ legislation generally aligns with the aims of Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party. It shortens the time period in which to request a mail-in ballot, from a week before the election to 15 days before, after thousands of mailed-in ballots arrived after the election-day deadline in Pennsylvania’s June 2 primary. It also limits the locations where voters can deliver mail-in ballots by hand and removes the restriction that poll watchers be registered voters in the county. Democrats oppose all three of those provisions. The Republican legislation also acknowledges the top request from counties, and allows them to start processing mail-in ballots three days before election day in an effort to speed up vote-counting. Democrats had asked to move up that deadline to 21 days before the election and to count mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after the election.