Election experts and advocates say the Pennsylvania legislature should update an outdated 1927 law that was written for an era of machine politics.
A Votebeat and Spotlight PA review of historical legislative records and news articles found that the 1927 provision has not been substantially updated in the near-century since its passage, and was designed to combat a type of fraud now easily detected by modern improvements to election administration.
Roughly 150 petitions were filed across the state in November, most targeting the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. The petitionsas judges considered them and, in the counties where recounts moved forward, election administrators fed the ballots back through high-speed scanners. None of the outcomes were altered by the recounts, which found almost no errors.
“I think this is more about ‘what is this for,’” she said. “If the purpose is to check if there is an error, we don’t need it. This is an old bill. We have recounts when the margin is slim, and we have audits in Pennsylvania.” In one incident, a judge of elections told a watcher for Renshaw’s campaign that he would only credit Renshaw with 50 votes — and the watcher was told to “take that or nothing.”
But that’s no longer how elections operate, said Al Schmidt, current president of the Committee of Seventy.
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