Pennsylvania: Why Pennsylvania is home to some of the nation’s worst gerrymanders | WHYY

In most states, the legislature is in charge of designing Congressional and state voting districts.
Pennsylvania isn’t unique in that respect. But some say the commonwealth is home to some of the nation’s starkest examples of gerrymandering — where the shape of a voting district is manipulated to produce the outcome desired by the party in charge. The term is over 200 years old. It was coined by a Boston newspaper’s coverage of maps produced in Massachusetts in 1812 during the term of Gov. Elbridge Gerry, which featured a salamander-shaped district loosely coiled around Boston.

Pennsylvania: In case that could affect 2018 elections, high court rules gerrymandering suit can proceed | Philadelphia Inquirer

In a case that could force the redrawing of congressional maps before the 2018 elections, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Thursday ordered the Commonwealth Court to decide a gerrymandering lawsuit by the end of the year. “We will have our day in court, and we will get a decision and a resolution of this matter in time for the 2018 election,” said Mimi McKenzie, the legal director of Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center, which represents the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania in the case. If the districts are, in fact, redrawn before next year’s midterm elections, the result could have national implications. New districts could give Democrats a boost in competitive, Republican-held districts just outside Philadelphia as they push to take control of the U.S. House. “It’s something that has broad national implications,” said Michael Li, senior redistrict counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Pennsylvania: Is your vote safe? Penn State panel casts doubts, but county elections chief says not to worry | Press & Journal

A Nov. 1 forum on election security at Penn State Harrisburg raised concerns about the vulnerability of voting systems nationally and in Pennsylvania to cyber attack. … Marian Schneider, a former special adviser to Gov. Tom Wolf on election policy and one of three speakers at the Penn State Harrisburg event, said it is “irrelevant” whether Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election actually altered the outcome in any way. She quoted former FBI Director John Comey saying that the Russians “will be back, and they will be bolder.” “If you conclude that they had some success with the election last year, they may embolden other actors, whether nation-state attackers or within the United States,” said Schneider, who was deputy secretary for elections and administration in the Pennsylvania Department of State from 2015 to 2017. “I think this is the new normal in elections and the Russian effort shows us what could possibly happen.

Pennsylvania: York County still scrambling to resolve races impacted by voting machine error | York Dispatch

Sandra Thompson said she's still in "wait-and-see" mode when in comes to any potential next steps for her candidacy for York County Court of Common Pleas judge. The local attorney and York NAACP chapter president unofficially finished on the outside looking in at three judge vacancies after the municipal election Tuesday, Nov. 7, but a technical oversight with the county voting machines has left her and other candidates unsure of the results. The oversight, discovered Monday afternoon, allowed a single voter to cast multiple votes for a single candidate in races where more than one candidate is elected.

Pennsylvania: Voting machine problems: What are York County’s options? | York Daily Record

The York County voting machine programming error that allowed voters to vote twice in some races for the same candidate on Tuesday -- once on the Republican ballot and once on the Democratic ballot -- has left some office seekers in limbo. The county election board is to meet next week on that matter, and at this time it's not clear what options the county may have to resolve the issue. The problem was limited to certain races where candidates cross-filed and appeared on both ballots, including the four-candidate judicial race for the York County Court of Common Pleas. The error did not affect the race for York mayor. Although the county is looking to the Pennsylvania Department of State for legal guidance, county spokesman Mark Walters said Wednesday that the problem is the county's, and the county's alone. The Department of State, which oversees state level elections, "doesn't have a lot of authority over county elections," a state department spokesman said. It is each county's responsibility to purchase, program and test voting machines.

Pennsylvania: Election day issues reported in several counties | PennLive

Several voting-related issues have cropped up in several central Pennsylvania counties today. York County has discovered a technical oversight with election machines, which allows a single voter to vote more than once for certain candidates, said Mark Walters, county spokesman. And in Dauphin County, a judge ordered deputies to seize raffle tickets that reportedly offered an iPhone X for votes in the Harrisburg mayor's race. Voter turnout in Dauphin County has been light so far, according to Jerry Feaser, county elections director. No unusual voting machine issues were reported. In York County, the technical issue impacts candidates who appear twice in a single race where more than one candidate is elected.

Pennsylvania: U.S. Supreme Court: Lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s Congressional redistricting can proceed | Associated Press

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to put on ice a federal lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania's congressional districts approved after the 2010 census. Justice Samuel Alito on Friday rejected the requested stay of the lawsuit by five Pennsylvania voters against the governor and elections officials, a court official said Saturday. Republican leaders in Pennsylvania's General Assembly had said in the request that a trial in the case could occur in about a month, as the justices are considering a Wisconsin gerrymandering case with what they call “substantively identical claims.”

Pennsylvania: GOP leaders seek stay of redistricting lawsuit | Associated Press

Republican leaders in Pennsylvania's General Assembly on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put on ice a federal lawsuit challenging the state's congressional districts approved after the 2010 census. House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati asked Justice Samuel Alito in a filing for a stay of the lawsuit by five Pennsylvania voters against the governor and elections officials. The request said a trial in the case could occur in about a month, as the justices are considering a Wisconsin gerrymandering case with what they call "substantively identical claims." A lawyer for the plaintiffs said Wednesday they oppose the request to Alito and said they were prepared to respond.

Pennsylvania: Effort to address Allegheny County voting machine vulnerabilities faces hurdles | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A grassroots effort to examine — and likely replace — Allegheny County’s voting machines has itself been struggling for lack of a vote. Its latest challenge came Friday morning in the courtroom of Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph James. At issue is a 16-page proposal to establish a “voting process review commission,” which would study the county’s electronic voting machines and recommend replacements. Under the measure, supported by the League of Women Voters and VoteAllegheny, voters would have to approve a referendum to pay for any new equipment. Activists fear that electronic touch-screen machines like those used in Allegheny County are susceptible to hacking — and that because those machines do not produce a hard copy of votes cast, there may be no way to get a reliable tally of votes.

Pennsylvania: Gerrymandering: Advocates ask State Supreme Court to use rare power | Philadelphia Inquirer

Advocates are trying to fast-forward court action on changing Pennsylvania’s congressional map — considered among the most distorted in the nation — before the important 2018 elections. A state judge overseeing a suit by the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania wants to hold off any action pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a similar case out of Wisconsin, but the league is asking the state high court to fast-track the case. In a hearing earlier this month, Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pelligrini made clear he did not see the case being decided before the 2018 elections, saying, “I can tell you it isn’t going to happen.” On Monday he ordered a stay in the league’s suit. “The idea that we would have yet another election that takes place under a map that violates people’s constitutional rights to vote, that’s not acceptable,” Mimi McKenzie, legal director at the Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center, which is representing the league, said Thursday.

Pennsylvania: Judge grants stay in state gerrymandering lawsuit as federal lawsuit gets December trial date | WPMT

A Commonwealth Court judge Monday granted a stay in the state lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s Congressional district map, as a district judge set a December trial date in a federal lawsuit also seeking to force lawmakers to re-draw the map. Respondents to the state lawsuit, filed by the League of Women Voters PA, argued a ruling should be stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on Gill v. Whitford, a gerrymandering case from Wisconsin. Oral arguments in that case were heard earlier this month, and the Supreme Court justices are continuing to deliberate on that case. The separate lawsuits hope to reach the same end result, but are using different methods to do so.

Pennsylvania: Plaintiffs in redistricting case ask State Supreme Court to intervene | PennLive

A group of Democratic Party voters who argue their voices are muted in Pennsylvania's congressional elections by "rigged" district lines have asked the state Supreme Court to immediately take up the case. The application for extraordinary relief was filed Wednesday night after Commonwealth Court Judge Daniel Pellegrini indicated he would stay the case - initially filed in the lower court - until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a different gerrymandering case out of Wisconsin. That delay, however, would likely make it impossible for the Pennsylvania case to have any relevance in the coming 2018 election cycle.

Pennsylvania: Secretary of State Pedro Cortes resigns abruptly | Philadelphia Inquirer

Pedro Cortes, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, abruptly resigned from office Wednesday, three weeks after his agency came under criticism for a glitch that may have allowed thousands of ineligible immigrants statewide to vote. Cortes’ departure was announced in a 349-word “personnel update” emailed from Gov. Wolf’s office that offered no reason and focused almost entirely on his replacement, interim Secretary of State Robert Torres. Just 14 of the words were about Cortes, who also served as secretary of state from 2003 to 2010 under Gov. Ed Rendell. J.J. Abbott, a spokesman for Wolf, said he could not offer an explanation for Cortes’ departure.

Pennsylvania: Gerrymandering, ‘political laser surgery,’ stokes fresh ire, legal fights | Philadelphia Inquirer

The proposal — letting a nonpartisan citizens commission, rather than politicians, draw lines for electoral districts — isn’t novel. It was presented by Carol Kuniholm, the executive director of Fair Districts PA, last week in Center City at a forum that focused on gerrymandering — a practice in which a party in power contorts legislative and congressional boundaries to its electoral advantage. Complaints about gerrymandering, a name derived from a 19th century Massachusetts governor and U.S. vice president who was a notorious practitioner, date to nearly the founding of the republic, notes David Thornburgh, head of the nonpartisan political watchdog group the Committee of Seventy. What is different these days is that the practices and the efforts to change them have reached perhaps unprecedented levels, said Thornburgh, who participated in that forum at the Pyramid Club, 52 floors above the streets of Center City, which included business and civic leaders. And this has been a particularly brisk period.

Pennsylvania: Judge: Redistricting lawsuit running out of time to alter 2018 elections | York Dispatch

A gerrymandering lawsuit filed against Pennsylvania legislative leaders went to court Wednesday, Oct. 4, but it could be several months before the courts hear opening arguments in the case, according to the judge who presided over the hearing. Lawyers representing the legislative leaders and the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania squared off in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg over the leaders’ attempt to halt the League’s lawsuit. The lawsuit claims Republicans engaged in extreme partisan gerrymandering when drawing the current congressional maps in 2011. Lawyers for the League are seeking a ruling from the court that strikes down the congressional maps and orders new maps to be drawn before the 2018 election.

Pennsylvania: Federal Court Lambastes Conservative Effort To Strip Felon Voting Rights In Philadelphia | HuffPost

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit against the Philadelphia City Commissioners that tried to force the city to purge convicted felons from the voter rolls, using scathing language against a conservative group that brought the suit. Felons in Pennsylvania cannot vote while they are incarcerated, but are eligible to do so upon release. The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), a conservative group that has pushed for more aggressive voting rights restrictions across the country, said felons should be removed from the voter rolls after incarceration and sued the city, alleging it was violating the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which sets guidance for how states can purge their voter rolls. Judge C. Darnell Jones II of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a George W. Bush appointment, dismissed the lawsuit last year.

Pennsylvania: System glitch let non-citizens register to vote | Associated Press

Some people who are in the U.S. legally but who are not citizens were mistakenly allowed to register to vote in Philadelphia because of a glitch in Pennsylvania's electronic driver's licensing system, a city election official said Wednesday. Al Schmidt, a Republican who sits on Philadelphia's three-member election commission, said that since 2006 at least 168 noncitizens registered to vote in the city through the motor voter driver's licensing system. In some cases, they voted, and some of them voted in more than one election, Schmidt said. Schmidt said he became aware of those people because they had contacted his office. Many more noncitizens could have mistakenly registered through the system in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, he said.

Pennsylvania: Challenges persist in funding election system upgrades | WITF

Election officials across the country are trying to make sure voting infrastructure is up to date, after concerns over potential hacking in the 2016 election. Pennsylvania is no exception. In 2002, the federal government handed down almost $4 billion for states to update their voting machines and other election equipment. Most states--including Pennsylvania--have long since drained their share.

Pennsylvania: Court To Decide Whether To Hear Gerrymandering Suit Similar To Case Before US Supreme Court | WSKG

Tom Rentschler, an attorney and former high school teacher, has lived in Berks County for most of his life. He remembers as a young adult going to the grocery store and bumping into his local congressman. But Rentschler, 53, says over time he and other voters in Berks County have lost their voice. "I just don't think we have anyone speaking for our county," he says. Berks County once made up a large portion of the 6th U.S. Congressional District. But the last time districts were redrawn in 2011, Berks' more than 400,000 residents were sliced and diced into four separate congressional districts.

Pennsylvania: An Allegheny County election integrity coalition won’t get a ballot question but is still pushing for new laws | The Incline

A referendum effort to get a question about election integrity on the November ballot may have failed, but the coalition behind it still plans to lobby the Allegheny County Council to pass legislation. A coalition of groups including Don’t Tread on My Vote and VoteAllegheny plan to rally at the City-County building at 4 p.m. today and attend the 5 p.m. meeting of county council. As the activists previously explained to the Post-Gazette, their main aim is to get the county to create a commission to review voting machines and eventually have them replaced with ones that leave a paper trail. … With the referendum effort done, the coalition now plans to focus on lobbying county council to pass a 16-page ordinance it drafted or similar legislation.

Pennsylvania: Why Pennsylvania sends too many Republicans to Washington – and why that could change | Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania sends too many Republicans to Washington. That’s not a partisan attack. It’s just math. Of the 18 Pennsylvanian members of the House of Representatives, 13 are Republicans and 5 are Democrats. That split should be more like 11 to 7 or even 10 to 8 if the districts were drawn without attempts at favoring Republicans, according to recent expert analyses. It’s all about the map: Several lawsuits are attempting to get various state legislative and congressional maps declared unconstitutional on the basis of partisan gerrymandering, the idea that one political party drew the lines in a way that benefited them unfairly. The lawsuits rely on a set of tools that for the first time could convincingly identify skewed maps and persuade the courts that a state’s map goes too far in favoring one party. A federal court has ruled Wisconsin’s state legislative map unconstitutional, the first victory in a partisan gerrymandering case in three decades.

Pennsylvania: 90 billion: The number of times hackers have tried to infiltrate Pennsylvania computer systems | PennLive

Hackers last year made more than 90 billion cyber intrusion attempts against the Commonwealth, according to a state official. As a security precaution the state is withholding information on the number of attempts against specific applications. Wanda Murren, press secretary for the state Department of State, said that such disclosure could potentially provide useful information to hackers and draw attention to the application, resulting in even more intrusion attempts. … The 90 billion figure applies to all computer systems and applications in use by all Commonwealth agencies and offices. But the accounting comes as local and state election systems across the country remain under scrutiny amid reports that scores of them were compromised during the election. The state Department of State declined to provide specific numbers on intrusion attempts against Pennsylvania's voter registration system.

Pennsylvania: Activists laying out options to urge Allegheny County to acquire new voting machines | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A coalition of activists wants a new commission to review — and recommend replacements for — Allegheny County’s 4,600 voting machines. And as befits an effort to double-check the results of each election, organizers have back-up plans to ensure they have their say. The coalition, which includes the local League of Women Voters and the election-transparency group Vote Allegheny, has proposed an ordinance to create a 13-member “Voting Process Review Commission” tasked with “conduct[ing] regular periodic reviews” of voting equipment. If it decides newer equipment is needed, the commission would recommend the machines to be purchased, if voters approve a referendum to pay for them. “Sooner or later, the county will have to replace the machines, and we’d like them to be prepared with a recommendation about the replacement,” said Annette Shimer, vice president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh. The effort stems from longstanding doubts about the touch-screen voting machines Allegheny County uses. Such machines store votes in memory, but have no paper trail to confirm voters’ choices. Some activists say the absence of hard copies makes it harder to detect vote-rigging.

Pennsylvania: Snyder seeks to broaden absentee voting | Observer-Reporter

State Rep. Pam Snyder, whose district includes Greene County and parts of Fayette and Washington counties, would like to see Pennsylvania allow early voting and no-excuse absentee balloting. “We’re busy people, on the go constantly to jobs, family responsibilities (and) civic duties,” Snyder said at a Harrisburg news conference last month, noting 37 states and the District of Columbia offer some sort of early voting. Twenty-seven states and the nation’s capital offer no-excuse absentee voting. “Not all of us work 9-to-5 shifts. We can do better. We should do better,” she continued.

Pennsylvania: Lawsuit Says House Redistricting Is Partisan Gerrymander | The New York Times

Voting-rights advocates in Pennsylvania filed suit on Thursday to nullify the state’s congressional-district map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, joining other court battles over the role of politics in redistricting already being waged in three other states. It is the latest major legal effort arguing that gerrymanders have become so egregious they are subverting democracy and creating legislative races with predetermined results. In a tactical twist, however, the Pennsylvania lawsuit was filed in a state court, which means that if the plaintiffs prevail, the ruling would set no precedent for challenges in other states. The three other lawsuits, in Maryland, North Carolina and Wisconsin, were filed in federal court and argue that the maps of congressional or state legislative districts violate the federal Constitution.

Pennsylvania: Groups sue Pennsylvania over congressional district gerrymandering | Philadelphia Inquirer

Calling gerrymandering “one of the greatest threats to American democracy,” the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania sued Thursday to have the state’s congressional district map thrown out. Future maps, the suit urges, should be drawn without “burdening or penalizing an identifiable group, a political party, or individual voters based on their political beliefs.” Filed in Commonwealth Court on behalf of Democratic voters in each of the state’s 18 congressional districts, the complaint argues that the map, drafted in 2011, “was the product of a national movement by the Republican Party to entrench its own representatives in power.” The GOP did so, the suit argues, by “utilizing the latest advances in mapmaking technologies and big data to gerrymander districts more effectively than ever before.”

Pennsylvania: Legislation introduced for same-day voter registration | Your Erie

State Rep. Ryan Bizzarro, (D) Erie, today urged enactment of his legislation that would free qualified state residents to go to their polling place on Election Day, register to vote and cast their ballot" “My House Bill 101 – same day voter registration -- removes unwarranted, archaic and costly barriers to voting, increases voter turnout and can save money,” Bizzarro said. Bizzarro, speaking at a Capitol news conference where various voting-reform measures were outlined, said studies have shown that states that have implemented same day voter registration have higher rates of participation than states like Pennsylvania, where a person has to register at least 30 days before an election to cast a ballot.

Pennsylvania: Matzie bill would have state implement voting by mail | The Beaver County Times

Pennsylvanians would be allowed to vote by mail under a bill introduced on Tuesday by state Rep. Rob Matzie. “As elected representatives in state government, I believe it is our duty to find ways to make voting for our constituents easier, more accessible and more secure,” Matzie, D-16, Ambridge, said in a statement. “One of those ways, as other states have shown, is to allow any eligible voter to cast their ballot for any and every election by mail.” Under Matzie’s House Bill 1546, the Pennsylvania Department of State and county election boards would be directed to create a vote-by-mail system in which voters could make a one-time request for a mail-in ballot and be automatically sent one in subsequent elections. Matzie said 22 states allow “certain elections to be conducted by mail,” and three states -- Oregon, Washington and Colorado -- have only vote-by-mail systems with California slated to join them next year.

Pennsylvania: Democrats push to get voter registration bills out of committee | WITF

A group of legislative Democrats are pushing no fewer than twelve bills on voter registration in the House and Senate. They would model expanded voting and voter registration in Pennsylvania after reforms already done in other states. However, Democrats haven't even been able to get the measures past the first stage of consideration in the GOP-controlled chambers--the House and Senate State Government Committees.

Pennsylvania: Senators, experts gather for “overview hearing” on election reform | PennLive

Imagine it's the first Tuesday of November. Rather than voting at your local precinct in your municipality, you would drive to the county "polling center" to cast your ballot. In a Senate hearing on Tuesday, legislators and elections experts discussed this "polling center" concept and other possibilities to amend Pennsylvania's current election practices, many of which have been in place since 1937.