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Another fact about Act 77, PA’s vote-by-mail law passed in the fall of 2019: #PAHouse Dems tried to amend the bill so that it wouldn’t take effect until 2021, but the GOP voted against it b/c they wanted the law in place for the 2020 election. https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/RC/Public/rc_view_action2.cfm?sess_yr=2019&sess_ind=0&rc_body=H&rc_nbr=770
The pre-COVID concern on our side was that the new law would place a strain on county election boards which, in many instances, were working to implement new voting machines, and that any change in law as large as this was bound to have issues - so, better to roll out in 2021.
So just to be clear, the #PAHouse GOP not only voted to pass Act 77, they also voted against giving the state and the counties time to iron out the wrinkles of the new law by delaying its implementation until 2021.
Why such a hurry? They wanted to eliminate straight-ticket voting, which they believed would help them in the 2020 general election (and it may have).
The #PAHouse GOP was 100% on board with vote-by-mail until sore loser Donald Trump decided he wasn’t. It’s that simple.
The #PAHouse GOP was 100% on board with vote-by-mail until sore loser Donald Trump decided he wasn’t. It’s that simple.
Legislation as transformative as Act 77 was inevitably going to run into problems in its rollout. Every legislator knew we’d likely need to fix things, and that the state dept. and counties would have to interpret the law and make independent decisions on how to implement it.
I say all of this just to underscore how nakedly political the PA House GOP’s current objections are.
It’s a reflexive, uncritical adoption of whatever nonsense comes from the departing President. It comes from fear of his angry and aggressively misinformed bloc of voters.
It’s a reflexive, uncritical adoption of whatever nonsense comes from the departing President. It comes from fear of his angry and aggressively misinformed bloc of voters.
And so now we see our GOP leaders in the #PAHouse willing to subvert the results of a democratic election (!!!) just to feed the monster that they helped create.
I wish they saw how history will see this. I wish they cared.
I wish they saw how history will see this. I wish they cared.
