Restore Election Integrity

Pennsylvania voters are just weeks away from a Primary election that will select candidates to vie for an open U.S. Senate seat that could determine the balance of power in that chamber.  For the first time since 1958 voters simultaneously will pick nominees for an open seat for Governor.  This will occur while concerns over the integrity of the 2020 Presidential election continue to linger amid fears this November’s balloting will likewise be compromised.

The Left along with a complicit legacy media arrogantly dismisses these concerns as the “big lie,” but their efforts at a cover up have failed to allay the fears percolating through a significant swath of the electorate. A legitimate election winner would be expected to take every step possible to validate their win.  The opposite occurred in the aftermath of the 2020 elections with Democrats fighting to block every effort to ensure ballots were fairly tabulated while the legacy media demonized those seeking clarity.

The annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference is the largest gathering of conservative activists each year in Penn’s Woods and this year’s event was no exception. A capacity crowd jammed into the Penn Harris Hotel in suburban Harrisburg for a two day program including forums in which all nine candidates for governor and six of the seven U.S. Senate candidates participated.

A straw poll asked attendees what they view as the most important issue facing lawmakers in Pennsylvania.  An overwhelming 61% cited election integrity. Eighty-six percent of the attendees support the automatic audit of every election regardless of the result.  A pre-conference Pennsylvania Election Integrity Summit sponsored by the Conservative Partnership Institute attracted a standing room only crowd that spent an entire day learning how to ensure future elections are conducted fairly.

The Left and its apologists in the legacy media are missing something important.  This is not about overturning the results of the 2020 Presidential election – it is about ensuring that future elections are conducted in a manner that ends in having the entire electorate having confidence in the validity of the balloting. Clearly a wide swath of the electorate currently lacks that confidence.

This is also not about stuffed ballot boxes or voting machine software chicanery.  Here in Pennsylvania destruction of voter confidence in the fairness of the election can be laid at the feet of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the Wolf Administration’s failure to provide clear and consistently applied rules to conduct the election.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is currently ruled by an activist state Supreme Court controlled by Democratic Justices who did everything possible to tilt the 2020 playing field to Joe Biden.  A single ruling – the tossing of the Green Party Presidential candidate off the ballot – resulted in the redirection of tens of thousands of voters into the Democratic column.

Consider the Green Party candidate for State Treasurer was allowed to remain on the ballot and drew 81,981 votes; the party’s candidate for Auditor General won 78,588 votes.  Joe Biden carried Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes.  It is safe to assume those Green Party voters, lacking their own candidate, ended up in the Biden column.

The high court’s unconstitutional usurpation of the legislature’s power to make election law by extending the period for ballots to be received by election bureaus, allowing ballots lacking a time stamp to be counted, and permitting the use of unsecured drop boxes created election chaos.  That confusion was further aggravated by the Department of State’s inconsistent application of the rules among the counties to the point they even allowed private Leftwing funders to contribute to election bureaus in heavily Democratic counties.

Despite the efforts of legislative Republicans virtually nothing has changed over the past year to give voters confidence in this year’s elections.  The House State Government Committee under the Chairmanship of Representative Seth Grove conducted numerous hearings and produced election reform legislation.  The bill was vetoed by Governor Tom Wolf who objected to the inclusion of a voter photo ID requirement – a reform polls show is supported by an overwhelming majority of voters in both parties.

Wolf has sent mixed signals relative to what he finds acceptable and has refused to negotiate with lawmakers in a good faith effort to develop an acceptable reform measure.  The state Senate is now taking up a series of single issue bills, such as the outlawing of drop boxes, in the hopes of enacting some reforms.

In a constitutional Republic such as ours it is vital that the electorate has confidence in the integrity of our elections.  It is clear that confidence is lacking and the time has come to stop sweeping those concerns under the proverbial rug and take the steps necessary to reform the system.

 (Lowman S. Henry is Chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly American Radio Journal and Lincoln Radio Journal. His e-mail address is [email protected].)

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