<!–

–>

May 24, 2022

Salena’s Zito’s latest analysis for the Washington Examiner (“The conservative populist coalition has grown in Pennsylvania.  What that means going forward is important”) correctly describes the trend that has been ongoing in the Keystone State for the past decade. What it misses, though — and it’s a big miss — is that Democrats are at it again in the commonwealth’s 2022 midterms elections.  They’re tilting the playing field in their favor. 

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609268089992-0’); }); }

This autumn, the “No Questions” mail-in balloting returns have the potential to blunt a favorable GOP trend with a deluge of Democrat ginned up mail-ins, which will impact critical statewide contests and competitive congressional and state legislative races.

Why should American Thinker readers elsewhere care about what happens in Pennsylvania?  Because Republicans aim to capture a majority in the U.S. House and Senate. 

The GOP is very likely to pick up enough seats across the country to win the House.  But gaining a majority in the Senate may hinge on the Mehmet Oz or Dave McCormick-John Fetterman matchup in the autumn.  Ironically, the outcome of the razor thin Oz-McCormick fight is bogged down in ballot errors and counting an undetermined number of mail-ins.  Per Amac, “it is a mess.”      

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609270365559-0’); }); }

Thanks to a ruling by the commonwealth’s Democrat-controlled Supreme Court, wide open mail-in balloting was restored.  The Court claims there’ll be further review toward a final decision, but who wants to bet that the 5-2 Democrat majority upholds the current law?     

From the Associated Press, via NBC 10 Philadelphia, March 2:

Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law will remain in place, at least for the near future, despite a state judge’s order that would have made it expire in two weeks, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The justices issued a one-paragraph order that overturned a Feb. 16 decision by Commonwealth Court Senior Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt that would have pulled the plug on the state’s two-year-old voting law.

Judge Leavitt’s ruling was common sense: No Questions mail-in balloting represents a change to Pennsylvania’s constitution.  The process of amending the constitution is violated by the current law.      

Mail-in balloting is most vulnerable to fraud, as was learned not just in Pennsylvania but across the country in 2020.  Chain-of-custody is a principal concern.  With avalanches of mail-ins, good luck making verifications.  Most states lack the resources to enforce proper verification at such a scale.  Local election offices can be quite partisan.  Moreover, since Pennsylvania Democrats generated the lion’s share of mail-ins in 2020, how likely are Democrat governor Tom Wolf and acting secretary of state Leigh M. Chapman to pursue scrupulous balloting this autumn?