Pa. House Democrats may be on board with voter ID expansion if part of larger election reforms, House speaker says

The top Pennsylvania House Democrat said she was open to including stricter voter identification requirements as part of a broader effort to modernize the state’s election law in the divided legislature, signaling a renewed willingness from Democrats to work on the issue.

House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) said Wednesday that she was open to voter ID policy so long as it does not disenfranchise voters.

Since the state’s rocky implementation of mail-in voting in 2020, election officials have begged lawmakers in the Pennsylvania legislature to update the state’s election law to allow local officials more time to process mail ballots and clean up an often antiquated election code. But GOP insistence that any major reforms to the election code include voter ID — and Democratic resistance to it — has been a persistent roadblock.

What’s more: Public support has been building over the last several years, with a Franklin and Marshall College poll finding last year that 73% of registered Pennsylvania voters support expanding voter ID measures. House Democrats in November won a one-seat majority in the state House for a second legislative session and any bill must go through a GOP-controlled state Senate, meaning compromise is necessary if Democrats want their own priorities to reach the governor’s desk.

Under current law, Pennsylvania voters must provide proof of identification the first time they vote in a new election district and every time they request a mail ballot. Some states require voters to show a form of ID every time they vote. Those policies can be controversial, as some of the strictest versions can prevent otherwise eligible voters from casting a ballot.

McClinton herself opposes voter ID expansions. But what was once a nonstarter for Democrats is now being discussed by her and other top House Democrats as an issue they are willing to negotiate — if they get other long-awaited election law changes or Democratic priorities in return.

At an election discussion in Carlisle on Wednesday, McClinton included voter ID on a list of policies she would like to include in election reforms this year. Lawmakers, she said, are still discussing a potential election reform package, but pre-canvassing, election code modernization, early voting, and voter ID have risen to the top of the priority list.

McClinton repeatedly — albeit incorrectly — said that House Democrats had already sent a voter ID measure to Senate Republicans in the previous legislative session that they declined to consider. (House Democrats did allow a voter ID provision to get a vote last session that earned bipartisan support, but it ultimately was removed from the final bill sent to the GOP-controlled Senate in 2023.)

“If there’s a will, there’s a way,” McClinton told a collection of election officials, advocates, and experts at Dickinson College. “What we lack in Harrisburg, just a few miles from here, is a willingness. We had a way.”

McClinton later told reporters that it is early in the process so details are unclear. In a subsequent statement, her spokesperson, Nicole Reigelman, said McClinton’s comments were consistent with the stance she held last year. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has previously said he is open to discussions on voter ID as long as voters are not disenfranchised, which Secretary of State Al Schmidt reiterated at Wednesday’s event.

Republicans have long desired a voter ID constitutional amendment, after a previous voter ID provision was struck down by a state appellate court in 2014. It has been a major point of negotiation for them when trying to update the state’s election code, such as a sweeping election reform package passed in 2021 that included major GOP concessions, which former Gov. Tom Wolf ultimately vetoed because of its inclusion of a voter ID requirement.

Voter ID has also been a bargaining chip for other nonelection issues, such as for agreement to vote on a constitutional amendment to create a two-year window for victims of child sexual abuse to sue their abusers — an effort that died last year after nearly a decade of advocacy from child sex abuse survivors, restarting the clock to get a measure onto the ballot.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) said in an interview that if Democrats are ready to negotiate voter ID as a constitutional amendment, it “unlocks the opportunity to have discussion on a number of issues that have not been able to advance over the last two years.”

“There are a number of items that are out there for conversation — the pre-canvassing issue, the early voting issue, same-day voter registration issue — all those conversations we’re willing to have, so long that we have confidence in the integrity of the process,” Pittman added. “The most significant thing we can do to ensure the integrity of the process is to require voter ID.”

“If Democrats are pivoting on that issue, I certainly welcome that change,” Pittman said.

Pennsylvania’s election code has been the subject of extensive controversy and litigation in recent years.

False claims of fraud spread in 2020 after Pennsylvania results were slow to come, in part because officials were not permitted to begin processing mail ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day, days after most states had begun that work. Hundreds of mail ballots are thrown out each election because voters neglect to date the outer envelope, even though election officials say the date is meaningless. And last year, chaotic scenes unfolded across the state as voters waited for hours to request and cast a mail ballot before Election Day.

At the Dickinson College event, planned by the pro-democracy group Keep Our Republic, state and local election officials reiterated their pleas to the General Assembly to address these concerns and offer more uniformity to the state’s election laws.

Even though election officials have made strides in processing ballots quicker, Schmidt cited pre-canvassing, which allows election officials to open ballots before Election Day, as the single most important reform lawmakers could make.

Counties “shouldn’t have to be working through the night, night after night,” said Schmidt, the state’s top election official and a former Philadelphia city commissioner. “There are better ways to do it.”

Schmidt also encouraged the body to consider establishing a more formal early voting system that allows officials to move voters through the system more quickly. McClinton has sponsored legislation to create this, as well as same-day voter registration, both of which are measures she hopes will increase voter turnout and civic participation.

Regardless of what changes are made, county commissioners and election directors pleaded for state lawmakers to include them in the process.

“They need to be thoughtful, they need to be collaborative with all of us, because at the end someone like me has to administer this,” said Karen Barsoum, director of voter services in Chester County.