The Hot Sheet

541 Early Voting Petition Signatures

In less than two months, we collected 541 signatures to support early voting in PA. A big thumbs-up to everyone who signed, and a special thanks to Jessica Weingarten on the Eastern side of the state for collecting additional signatures.

Constituents’ signatures from over half of all the senate districts in PA were collected.  They were mailed off to Harrisburg today, and put in the hands of Sen. Daylin Leach of Montgomery County, who sponsored the senate version of the legislation.

“This bill would do three things. It would expand opportunities for people to vote, shorten lines on Election Day, and allow time for disputes to be resolved,” said Sen. Leach.

We here at the PA League agree that the early voting option provides a form of election protection in that there’s time to address voting machine errors, a reduction in long lines on election day, and is without the concern of absentee ballot fraud.

Anything that responsibly makes voting easier and, therefore, more likely that more people will vote, is a good thing in our book.

Considering that turnout for the last presidential election was still only about 62% of all registered voters (no even counting citizens who could register but still haven’t), our country still needs to promote voting and make it easier in order for us to truly realize a participatory democracy and have an accountable government.

Anyway, I’m proud of our work on this.  We’ll be sure to keep you informed on what happens.  The full text of SB 445 and HB 238 (intoduced by Rep. Eugene DePasquale of York County) is available online.  And it’s not too late to contact your senator or representative about this — their info can always be found here.

Yours,
Carly Dobbins-Bucklad, Director

Tags: early voting, legislation, Pennsylvania, petitions, senate, signatures, turnout

Get Early Voting signatures in Sen. Pippy’s District

On Saturday March 21st we will head to Mt. Lebanon to collect our last signatures in support of Early Voting.

Mt. Lebanon is in Sen. John Pippy’s district.  Sen Pippy is a member of the Senate State Government committee, where the early voting bill is currently under review.

We need volunteers to help canvass door-to-door for petition signatures!

Email adam@paleague.com to join us this Saturday, from 11-2 or 3-6pm.

Thanks!

Tags: canvassing, early voting

Last chance for early voting

We’re nearing our deadline to collect Early Voting petition signatures.  We’re about to box ‘em up and ship them off to the state Senate to make sure they know that their constituents want to see greater accessibility and accountability at the polls.

Combining information about the candidates with making voting easier is the recipe for the kind of informed, consistent civic participation that we’ve always hoped for.

*Click here to sign the petition and add your name to the list of supporters!*

Click here to read the proposed legislation, SB 445, introduced by Senator Daylin Leach of Montgomery County.  SB 445 was referred to the State Government committee on Feb. 24th, 2009.

The Senate State Government committee members are as follows:

McIlhinney, Charles T., Jr. , Chair (Bucks & Montgomery Counties)
Folmer, Mike, Vice Chair (Berks, Chester, Dauphin, Lancaster and Lebanon Counties)
Williams, Anthony H. , Minority Chair (Delaware and Philadelphia (part) Counties)
Scarnati, Joseph B., III, ex-officio (Cameron, Clearfield, Elk, Jefferson, Mckean, Potter, Tioga and Warren Counties)

Brubaker, Michael W. (Chester and Lancaster Counties)
Corman, Jake (Centre, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry and Union Counties)
Pippy, John (Allegheny and Washington Counties)
White, Donald C. (Armstrong, Butler, Clearfield, Indiana and Westmoreland Counties)

Dinniman, Andrew E. (Chester and Montgomery Counties)
Tartaglione, Christine M. (Philadelphia County)
Washington, Leanna M. (Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties)

Tags: early voting

Canvass Opportunity: Mexican War Streets, this Thursday

Join us as we canvass the Mexican War Streets, on the North Side, to build support for Early Voting in Pennsylvania!

We will meet at Beleza Community Coffeehouse, at 1501 Buena Vista Street, at 3:30 PM. Let us know that you plan to come help by RSVP’ing on the Facebook event page.

Of course, you should sign the petition yourself, if you haven’t already.

Tags: canvassing, early voting

Early Voting in Pennsylvania

So Pennsylvania might finally join the 31 other states in having the option to cast an early ballot for elections.

Early voting legislation recently introduced by Rep. DePasquale in the state House and parallel legislation in the state Senate by Sen. Leach seeks to make counties offer times for people to cast their ballot on at minimum the weekends and possibly some weekdays starting two weeks before an election.

The legislation would allow those whose work schedules or other commitments or constraints to make sure they can get their ballot cast.  It would also allow get-out-the-vote efforts more time to mobilize voters, and help reduce long lines and machine errors on election day from keeping voters away.

This legislation is partially necessary because the state constitution does not allow absentee ballots to be used for anything other than the specific reasons listed.  (And heck, even Iraq has early voting.)

The PA League of Young Voters is collecting petition signatures to give to the Senate committees indicating the support for this legislation.

Support Early Voting in PA

SIGN THE PETITION ONLINE

Volunteer to help with the petition drive — join our canvassing efforts or request copies of the petition to distribute yourself. Email mac@paleague.com.

Tags: absentee, disenfranchised, early voting, pa league of young voters, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, voters, Voting