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Two candidates with vastly different visions for elections are competing for Pennsylvania’s governorship this year.
On one side, incumbent Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has staked many of his policy stances on elections in opposition to President Donald Trump, while struggling to pass new election laws through the divided state legislature. On the other hand, state treasurer Stacy Garrity, Shapiro’s Republican challenger, has indicated she would defer to Trump’s election priorities, but her state-level legislative priorities are less clear.
And in the background, questions about Garrity’s views on the legitimacy of the 2020 election still loom.
Garrity has walked a fine line on the 2020 election
Garrity was first elected as state treasurer in November 2020, when Trump lost his first reelection bid and falsely claimed the contest was marred by fraud. Garrity went on to echo that rhetoric.
“The election from this November is tarnished forever,” she said at a Jan. 5, 2021, rally at the state capitol.
At a 2022 rally with Trump and Mehmet Oz, who was then a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Garrity was more direct.
“We know that he won,” she said, referring to Trump’s 2020 race.
Since then, Garrity has attempted to walk back those and other comments, but she hasn’t ever fully refuted Trump’s claim that he lost the election due to fraud or that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner.
When she was up for reelection in 2024, a campaign spokesperson said her January 2021 comments were not about Trump’s election, but rather only about “inconsistent application of ballot counting rules that directly affected the outcome of a state senate race in the 45th District.” However, rally organizers told reporters at the time that the purpose of the event was to ask state legislators to decertify Pennsylvania’s November 2020 votes.
As for her 2022 comments, Garrity said earlier this year those remarks were made at a Trump rally, which are “kind of fun things” that are “easy to get caught up in.”
During a recent sitdown interview with Dennis Owens, the ABC27 anchor asked Garrity if she believes Trump lost the 2020 election.
“Yeah, I mean, I won, and that’s what I’m most concerned about,” Garrity responded, though she added there were “irregularities” in the election.
In an interview with Spotlight PA earlier this month, Garrity said that her use of the word "irregularities" referred "very specifically” to guidance issued by then-Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar in 2020.
While Garrity told Spotlight PA she is “painfully aware” Biden was the president after the 2020 election and that she “agree[s] that he was the elected president,” Garrity has not said Biden won legitimately.
Did Shapiro keep his 2022 campaign promises?
When he first ran for governor in 2022, Shapiro put a heavy emphasis on democracy and voting issues, and the first policy plan his campaign released was focused on those subjects. It laid out a wide range of policy ideas he said he would pursue, including new legislation and administrative changes.
During his first term, Shapiro has successfully enacted some of those plans, but not others.
In September 2023, he unilaterally brought automatic voter registration to the state, directing PennDOT to change its voter registration process from one where prospective voters had to affirmatively opt in to one where they are automatically taken through the process unless they opt out. State data shows the switch has achieved its goal of registering more voters.
Shapiro also promised to appoint a secretary of the commonwealth who would "run elections fairly and uphold democracy.” That appointment would fall to Al Schmidt, a Republican and the former Philadelphia city commissioner who stood up to Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020.
Under Schmidt, the Department of State has redesigned mail ballot return envelopes and provisional ballot envelopes to reduce the number of ballots rejected for technical errors. Analysis from Votebeat and Spotlight PA found that both of those changes have achieved their goals.
In keeping with Shapiro’s promise to “make more resources available in different languages so that every eligible voter can make their voices heard,” in 2023 the Department of State created Spanish and Chinese versions of its website. During Shapiro's term, the department has also translated voter registration and mail ballot application forms into additional languages.
But there are some promises Shapiro hasn’t delivered on. For instance, his 2022 plan said he would create a centralized website where election results for all races, including local races, could be found. But the state’s current project to upgrade its Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors, or SURE, program, which includes a revamp of its election night reporting system, does not include a plan to have it also display local results.
Additionally, he said he would “provide funds in his first budget” so that all counties could participate in a risk-limiting audit of elections, a type of statistical test done to ensure the accuracy of results. By the time Shapiro entered office, all counties were already participating in the risk-limiting audit, and his first budget kept funding for county election expenses flat. Counties are not currently reimbursed for the costs of these audits.
This, and other policy struggles also reflect the reality of Pennsylvania’s divided legislature.
A divided legislature impedes election lawmaking
Shapiro made many other promises during the 2022 campaign that required the legislature’s help to pass. Those included allowing people to register to vote on Election Day, preregistering 16-year-olds to vote, establishing true early in-person voting, and allowing counties more time to process mail ballots ahead of Election Day.
But election legislation of all types has effectively ground to a halt during Shapiro’s term. The Republican-controlled state Senate has said any election legislation needs to be paired with expanded voter ID requirements, which they prefer in the form of a hard-to-pass — and hard-to-challenge legally — constitutional amendment.
But Shapiro himself has also been relatively quiet on election legislation. He has issued few statements urging passage of specific proposals, even those that he touted during that 2022 campaign.
In 2024, when the state House passed a bill that would have provided more time for counties to prepare mail ballots for counting, he urged the state Senate to do the same and send it to him to sign. But in other instances, Shapiro has not responded to questions on specific election legislation, and he has avoided weighing in or declined to comment on competing proposals, even when he has supported the underlying policy.
Last year, when a comprehensive election reform package supported by Democratic state House Speaker Joanna McClinton passed the lower chamber, a spokesperson for Shapiro did not directly answer a question about whether he supported the bill, which included some elements he campaigned on. Recently, his campaign also did not respond to questions on what his election priorities would be if Democrats were to win full control of state government this fall.
Shapiro has also failed to appoint several members to a state board meant to advise the legislature on election policy, which has contributed to the board now sitting idle.
Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s campaign, defended his record on elections and noted that the fact that control of the legislature is split between parties makes it more difficult to pass legislation. “Governor Shapiro has a long record of protecting our democracy – from standing up to Trump and his allies when they try to undermine it, to implementing commonsense reforms to protect and improve our free, fair, safe, secure elections,” he said in an email.
Beyond voter ID, Garrity’s election priorities are unclear
If Garrity is elected governor, she could have tremendous influence over election policy in the state. But she hasn’t released an elections policy plan of her own, and her campaign has not responded to several requests for an interview on the subject. What is known about her stance on election issues comes from the few questions she has answered on the campaign trail and in more broadly-focused interviews with Spotlight PA.
First and foremost, Garrity would be able to appoint a new secretary of the commonwealth, who can influence how elections run through approving what equipment can be used and making sometimes binding guidance on issues of state law. It’s not clear who, if anyone, Garrity has in mind for this position.
Garrity could also make, or direct her cabinet members to make, administrative decisions that would impact voting.
For example, several Republican-led states have recently withdrawn from the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a data-sharing consortium of states that works to identify inaccurate or duplicate voter registration records. The program has faced attacks from conservatives in recent years. Garrity has not said how she would handle ERIC.
Both state Republicans and President Trump have also heavily criticized Shapiro’s implementation of automatic voter registration. As governor, Garrity would be able to reverse the policy, but she has not said whether she would.
One point on which Garrity has been more definitive is that she would like to require more voters to show identification at the polls.
Currently, voters are required to show ID only when voting for the first time or when voting at a new polling location. Republicans in the state have for years been trying to expand those requirements.
During the recent interview with Spotlight PA, Garrity said she supported implementing enhanced voter ID requirements in the state.
“That’s where I would start,” she said. “You have to have an ID to do anything.”
Garrity did not specify what forms of identification would be acceptable, or other details such as whether she would be open to exceptions. For instance, some other states have an affidavit system where someone else can vouch for a voter’s identity if they do not have ID with them at the polls.
Shapiro has also indicated an openness to voter ID, though no proposals made it to his desk during his first term.
Shapiro, Garrity would handle Trump differently
Apart from their policy differences at the state level, Shapiro and Garrity would bring very different approaches to Pennsylvania’s relationship with the federal government, including as it pertains to elections.
As state attorney general in 2020, Shapiro represented Pennsylvania in numerous lawsuits involving Trump’s election fraud claims, a fact he still makes note of even today.
“Every time Donald Trump and his enablers have been forced to produce evidence to back up these ridiculous claims, they've failed,” Shapiro said in response to Trump’s July primetime address on elections. “And in 2020, when they took us to court and tried to undermine the will of the people here in Pennsylvania — I went 43-0, Trump went 0-43.”
This year alone, Shapiro has joined two lawsuits against the Trump administration in his capacity as governor. The first, from April, challenged Trump’s executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to only deliver ballots to individuals on preapproved lists provided by the states.
In July, he also joined a suit challenging the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s withholding of grant funds, which the plaintiffs argue is being done to coerce the states into compliance with the administration's preferred elections and immigration policies.
By contrast, Garrity is likely to cooperate with the federal government on election policies. In response to Trump's call this past February to nationalize elections, Garrity said she would “work with the Trump administration” to “turn our state around.”
The Shapiro administration has also rebuffed the U.S. Department of Justice’s demand for a version of the state’s voter roll that includes driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.
By contrast, Garrity has said she would provide the records.
“If we think there’s not voter fraud, then why not hand over the rolls and prove him wrong?” she told ABC27.
Katie Meyer of Spotlight PA contributed reporting.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.