Crime and Justice
Republicans Ask Top State Court To Suspend Its Vote-By-Mail Order
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“[The ruling] jeopardizes the security and integrity of our elections and will potentially put Pennsylvania in the middle of a disastrous national crisis.”
WSKG (https://wskg.org/author/epreviti/)
“[The ruling] jeopardizes the security and integrity of our elections and will potentially put Pennsylvania in the middle of a disastrous national crisis.”
“If they get too far into the weeds or attempt to drop in other fixes now, my fear is nothing will get done.”
Changes to state law need to be effective by early September if counties are to implement them in time for the general election.
More voters cast provisional ballots Tuesday because they hadn’t received their mailed ballot or feared it wouldn’t make the return deadline.
The challenge now: Counting nearly 2 million mail-in ballots. Final results may take a week to tabulate
Wolf makes surprise announcement that he’s extending deadline for returning mail-in ballots by a week
But, he offered few specifics on how his administration will help counties deal with the huge volume of mailed ballots.
Election chiefs call on state officials to allow processing to start earlier, clarify which polling places can open.
“Literally, ‘Pay me now and maybe you will get some stuff some time in the future,’ is where some vendors are starting.”
Voters who request absentee and mail-in ballots before the May 26 deadline might receive them at different times due to “factors outside their control.”
State leads nation in percentage of workforce seeking benefits
Citizens think the state’s redistricting process is broken and corrupt, manipulated by politicians for their own gain, and lacks transparency.
In Columbia County, for example, the sheriff’s storage area was at 90 percent capacity as state lawmakers debated the PFA law last year in Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania will redraw its congressional and legislative districts after the 2020 census – and there’s a renewed push to change the rules before that happens.
About 1,300 Pennsylvania communities don’t have their own police departments and rely instead on state police. But they don’t pay anything for the service – and it costs state taxpayers nearly half a billion dollars every year.
Pennsylvania’s turnout jumped from 43 percent in 2014 to 58 percent in this year’s midterm.
(Undated) — Organizers weren’t sure, initially, whether U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-10, would appear in-person for the Cumberland 9/12 Patriots’ candidates forum in Carlisle last spring.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS — Candidates in Pennsylvania’s Ninth Congressional District held their final debate at WVIA in Pittston Tuesday night, concluding a race marked recently by personal attacks.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to consider another appeal by Republican state lawmakers over this year’s changes to Pennsylvania’s congressional district map.
STATE IMPACT PENNSYLVANIA — State lawmakers have advanced a bill that would change the state’s constitution to put its congressional district map in the hands of an citizens’ commission, one whose 11 members would be chosen by elected officials.
(KEYSTONE CROSSROADS) — Voter turnout was 18 percent in the Pennsylvania’s primary election earlier this week – three points higher than the last midterm primaries in 2014, but about a point lower than the average for the past several such elections.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS — Republican Dan Meuser, who was Gov. Tom Corbett’s Secretary of Revenue, and Democrat Denny Wolff, agriculture secretary for Gov. Ed Rendell, won their respective primaries in Pennsylvania’s ninth district Tuesday.
ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (KEYSTONE CROSSROADS) — Pennsylvania voters are heading to the polls today for the first election under a new congressional map.
LEBANON, PA (KEYSTONE CROSSROADS) — Primary elections often feature a field of candidates with policy positions that are barely distinguishable as they court voters of the same party.
STATE IMPACT PENNSYLVANIA – York County pastor George Scott is one of four Democrats running for the nomination to try to unseat Republican Congressman Scott Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th district.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS — The state Attorney General’s office has launched a website where gun owners can check which states recognize Pennsylvania’s concealed carry permits — and which outside permits are recognized by the commonwealth.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS — The Pennsylvania legislature would get more control over how state legislative boundary lines are drawn under an amended bill that passed out of the House Government Committee along party lines Wednesday. The original bill removed lawmakers from the process in favor of an independent citizens’ commission. State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, says lawmakers are the most accountable of anyone who might be tasked with legislative reapportionment. “The best way to make sure we have citizens actually being the ones redrawing, citizens who are held accountable to their fellow citizens who elect them to office, and are not just going to go away after the work is done, and be held accountable in the future for their decisions, is to totally gut and replace this bill,” said Metcalfe, committee chairman. Metcalfe’s amendment completely changed House Bill 722 from its original intent.
STATE IMPACT PENNSYLVANIA — Some Pennsylvania lawmakers want to impeach four of seven state Supreme Court justices for what they say was judicial overreach — after the court redrew the Commonwealth’s congressional map earlier this year.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS – Democratic congressional hopeful Laura Quick and two campaign staffers recently set up shop for the afternoon inside a Panera Bread not too far from her home in Palmyra, Lebanon County.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS – Pennsylvania’s congressional map has been recognized nationally as having some of the starkest examples of gerrymandering in the country, prompting both a state and a federal lawsuit in 2017. A three-judge panel in the federal case upheld the map as drawn by Republicans in 2011. The state case compelled the Democratic-majority Pa. Supreme Court to strike it down as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. This ruling seems likely to alter the partisan tilt of the state’s congressional delegation, which has held a steady 13-5 Republican advantage.
KEYSTONE CROSSROADS – Friday is the court-imposed deadline for the Pennsylvania legislature to agree on a new congressional district map. But the legislature wasn’t in session Wednesday or Thursday this week, even though procedural rules would suggest they needed to be there to progress through the necessary parliamentary steps in time.