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The movement to change voting laws in Pennsylvania is all but dead.
Despite bipartisan support for changes in Harrisburg, no major election bill has become law since the state implemented no-excuse mail voting in 2020. The issue has become deeply partisan since then. Bills routinely pass either the GOP-controlled state Senate or Democratic-controlled state House, then wither in the other chamber. And a board meant to advise the legislature on bipartisan solutions sits idle.
But could that change if Democrats win a state government trifecta — control of the state Senate, state House, and governorship — this fall? And what policies would they prioritize?
Republicans have controlled all three for stretches in recent decades, most recently from 2011 to 2014. During that period, they passed a major voter ID requirement that was ultimately overturned in court. Democrats in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, haven’t held both chambers and the governorship since 1993. Even then, the trifecta lasted just one year.
But a path, though difficult, exists for Democrats to regain unified control in November’s midterm elections.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro leads state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, his Republican challenger, by more than 20 points in several recent polls.
Democrats would also have to maintain their narrow majority in the House and flip the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 27-23 majority. That would require them to retain a seat they flipped in Lancaster County last year and pick up new ones in potentially vulnerable districts in the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia suburbs.
Democrats have reason to think those seats are within reach. Conventional political wisdom holds that when a sitting president has low approval ratings, the opposing political party tends to have a good year in the midterms.
If Democrats succeed, they could have an easier time passing election law changes that have eluded them in recent years.
They may also face political pressure from their base to go further and pursue the kind of partisan mid-decade redistricting that other states under single-party control, like Texas and California, have recently undertaken.
What voting changes do Democrats want?
Democrats have made it clear during this legislative session where their election priorities lie.
Last May, the state House passed an omnibus election bill sponsored by Democratic Speaker Joanna McClinton that would have significantly reshaped Pennsylvania elections.
The bill would have established true in-person early voting, instead of the current, time-consuming process of requesting and casting a mail ballot at a local election office; mandated at least two mail ballot drop boxes in every county; and required counties to adopt electronic pollbooks by 2027.
It also would have given counties more time to prepare mail ballots for counting before Election Day. Advocates say this preparation, known as pre-canvassing, leads to faster election results. The state House also recently passed pre-canvassing as a stand-alone bill.
Earlier this month, at a rally for voting rights in the state capitol, McClinton again called on the state Senate to consider her omnibus bill.
“We’ll have everything necessary so that we can continue to lift up our voices in this democracy,” she said of how things would look if her bill passed.
State Sen. Jay Costa, the Senate minority leader, responded to McClinton’s call on X, saying Senate Democrats were ready to take up the bill. But the bill hasn’t come up for a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate because GOP leaders have insisted that any election legislation include expanded voter ID requirements.
Asked how the election policy conversation would change under a Democratic-led Senate, Costa highlighted many of the issues covered in McClinton’s bill as well as other Democratic priorities: pre-canvassing, drop boxes, electronic pollbooks, preregistering voters who will be 18 by Election Day, early voting, and same-day voter registration.
He also mentioned opening up Pennsylvania’s primaries to independent and third-party voters. It’s a proposal that has been gaining some bipartisan traction in recent years.
“We want to make it easier for people to vote, but also have a system that has integrity,” Costa said.
Costa added that if Democrats pass these proposals next session, they would also try to provide counties with funding to implement them.
McClinton’s bill also included funding to help counties implement the changes. It would authorize up to $60 million in bonds for new equipment, provide $2 million for electronic pollbook vetting and approval, and designate about $100,000 annually, plus benefits, to pay a new staffer.
Would election changes be a priority?
Should Democrats win a trifecta, they would surely have a lot of things other than election policy on their wish list. But Kyler Miller, a former Democratic Senate staffer who now works as a policy advocate with the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, thinks that election legislation would be fairly close to the top — perhaps even in the top three.
Miller said President Donald Trump's attacks on voting have elevated the issue for Democrats, pointing to the Department of Justice’s attempts to obtain election materials and voter rolls, as well as threats to reject unfavorable election results.
“That playbook that is being deployed against American elections is very much a top issue for the Dems and their electorate,” he said. “People have fought for years for the right to vote, and it’s being slowly eroded over time by the administration and the Supreme Court.”
Miller agreed that a Democratic trifecta would likely focus on passing priorities they’ve already identified, such as pre-canvassing and codifying certain court rulings.
State courts in recent years have required counties to use a system that notifies mail voters if election officials determine their ballots will be rejected due to a fixable error. They have also affirmed voters’ right to have a provisional ballot counted if their mail ballot is rejected. Voting rights advocates cheered both decisions, but both advocates and jurists have expressed frustration that the legislature did not clarify those ambiguities itself.
Miller also said the state should provide more funding for election officials’ safety and training, given the exodus of experienced local officials in recent years.
What about redistricting?
With full control over state government, Democrats would also have the ability to redraw Pennsylvania’s congressional map to better advantage their party.
The current map, selected by the state Supreme Court in 2022 after a partisan deadlock in the legislature, elected 10 Republican representatives and seven Democrats to Congress in 2024. However, it’s possible to draw a map with as many as 12 or 13 safely Democratic seats.
Over the past year, several other states, including Texas and California, have redrawn their congressional lines as part of an unprecedented spate of mid-decade gerrymandering.
Last year, Shapiro said he was not pursuing mid-decade redistricting and called Texas’s redraw “shameful.”
A spokesperson for Shapiro’s campaign didn’t respond to questions about whether Shapiro would pursue partisan redistricting if Democrats won a trifecta or what specific election law priorities he would pursue. But press secretary Sam Reposa said in a statement that the Republican grip on power has been an impediment to election law changes more broadly.
“For over 30 years in the majority, Senate Republicans have stood in the way of more progress we could be making in the Commonwealth,” Reposa said, specifically citing “passing key reforms to protect our democracy.”
Erica Clayton-Wright, a spokesperson for state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, responded in an email that Senate Republicans are the “last line of defense” protecting taxpayers on a variety of issues, including “safeguarding elections.”
“Pennsylvanians know [Democratic] policies are detrimental to positioning our Commonwealth for growth, which will prevent a trifecta in Pennsylvania,” she said.
Even if a Democratic trifecta did redraw Pennsylvania’s congressional map, it would likely face a court challenge. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution when it threw out a GOP-drawn congressional map.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.