The five-month battle over the Republican primary in the state House of Representatives’ Luzerne County district officially ended Monday, but the state Supreme Court decision that settled the dispute has left GOP lawmakers questioning Pennsylvania’s automatic voter registration practices.
In a case involving provisional votes cast in this month’s House primary election, the Supreme Court raised concerns about the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s lack of authority to change the voter registration of individuals who transfer their vehicle registration to a fresh address.
IN letter to Governor Josh Shapiro On Friday, 65 members of the House Republican caucus warned of widespread confusion over the practice and called on PennDOT to stop offering voter registration changes beyond updating or issuing driver’s licenses and ID cards.
The lawmakers also said the Department of State must contact every voter who changed their voter registration through PennDOT to ensure the change was intended to trigger changes to the voter registration.
Pennsylvania implements automatic voter registration
“Failure to promptly address these issues will lead to unnecessary disinformation and misinformation surrounding the election process, directly due to the actions of the state government,” the letter said, adding that legal proceedings would also be a likely outcome.
Pennsylvania is one of several closely watched swing states in the Nov. 5 presidential election. Election procedures, including those involving provisional and mail-in ballots, have been the subject of lawsuits that are still pending in state courts.
Shapiro announced last year that residents who applied for a driver’s license or state-issued photo ID automatically register to vote. Although people have been able to register to vote through PennDOT since 1993, when the federal “motor voter” law went into effect, they had until September of last year to register.
Shapiro’s office and PennDOT did not respond to requests for comment by the time of filing.
On Monday, the Luzerne County Board of Elections certified the results of the Republican primary in the 117th Legislative District, making Jamie Walsh an official winner over incumbent Rep. Mike Cabell by four votes. Earlier, Walsh declared victory in July by a majority of five votes, despite the ongoing legal proceedings.
The certification follows a Sept. 13 decision in which the Supreme Court ruled whether provisional votes cast by two voters should be included in the results. In the case of a voter who did not sign the outer envelope of his provisional vote, the court ruled that it should not be counted.
However, with respect to a voter whose voter registration was changed to a different precinct several months before the primary election, the court ruled that the voter’s provisional vote should be counted. The court found that because the voter physically moved to the fresh address less than 30 days before the primary election, the Election Code permitted him to vote in the precinct for his venerable address.
However, a majority of Supreme Court justices questioned the validity of the method used to change the voter registration information of former Butler Township resident Shane O’Donnell.
O’Donnell testified in the first court hearing that PennDOT had to change his voter registration when he transferred his vehicle registration to a fresh address in McAdoo, Schuylkill County. An elections official testified that was consistent with agency practice, according to the court decision.
Judge Sallie Updyke Mundy, a Republican appointed to the court in 2016, spoke for a five-judge majority in finding that Pennsylvania voter registration law allows PennDOT to submit voter registration applications, including updates to an existing voter registration, only in connection with an application to issue or update a driver’s license.
“Any administrative decision by PennDOT or the Pennsylvania Department of State to transfer a voter registration without the express consent of that individual in connection with a PennDOT application to change a vehicle registration, as opposed to a driver’s license, is therefore questionable,” Mundy wrote.
Judge David Wecht, elected as a Democrat in 2015, wrote a separate opinion in which he admitted that PennDOT’s practice appeared to have no legal basis.
“While PennDOT’s fraudulent transfer of voter registration in this case did not ultimately disenfranchise O’Donnell, it would be troubling if PennDOT were to engage in the practice of making such a transfer without statutory authorization or even voter consent,” Wecht wrote.
In a letter to Shapiro, Republican lawmakers expressed concerns about the possibility of more cases like O’Donnell’s.
“Thankfully, Mr. O’Donnell knew he had to request a provisional ballot, but how many other Pennsylvanians in a similar situation know they have to do the same? We fear that many more cases like this are waiting to be discovered — likely at polling places on Election Day,” the letter reads.
