In March President Donald Trump signed an executive order that seeks to overhaul how states handle elections, and Berks County officials are looking into what its local impact may be.
At a meeting of the board of elections Thursday, First Assistant County Solicitor Cody Kauffman said the order outlines several directives and that a few of them would directly impact the way Berks runs elections. Those include a new voter registration requirement, the decertification of certain voting systems and stricter ballot deadlines.
Kauffman said the order is already facing court challenges, which means it’s unclear if and when it would impact local elections.
The new voter registration rules included in the order requires voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to register. Acceptable documents for proving citizenship under the order include a passport, a military card indicating citizenship or any valid federal- or state-issued photo ID confirming citizenship.
When it comes to voting systems, the order states the systems should not use a ballot in which a vote is contained in a barcode or a QR code — except where necessary to accommodate individuals with disabilities.
It instructs the federal Election Assistance Commission, an independent group whose mission is to help election officials improve the administration of elections, to rescind all previous certifications of voting equipment that does not adhere to this directive.
Berks would be impacted by that decision.
Its voting system, ExpressVote, allows voters to use touchscreens to make selections. The machines then print paper ballots that include a barcode and plain text, giving voters a chance to look at the receipt to ensure their vote was recorded correctly.
The barcode is read by a scanner, casting the vote.
The order also addresses deadlines, saying states cannot count ballots received after Election Day.
Pennsylvania law already does not allow mail ballots received after 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted. It does, however, provide a grace period for overseas and military ballots.
Those must be postmarked by 11:59 p.m. the day before the election at the latest and be received no later than 5 p.m. the seventh day after the election.
Kauffman said the executive order does not specifically address military and overseas ballots, so how it will impact those is unclear.
Kauffman noted that Trump’s order was met with legal challenges from parties arguing that the U.S. Constitution empowers states to dictate how elections are run, which likely means the order will be tied up in the courts for the foreseeable future.
“I don’t believe there is going to be any immediate impact to our current operations,” he told the board.
Kauffman added that executive orders do not establish new law, but they do instruct federal agencies to take specific actions or implement policies. So until those agencies issue new directives the county cannot determine how to implement the order.
Commissioner Dante Santoni Jr. offered his own criticism of the order, saying it’s a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.
“This all goes back to the nonsense that the 2020 election was rigged,” said Santoni, the lone Democrat among the commissioners. “I also find it sort of laughable, quite frankly, that the federal government is going to come in and tell us how to run our elections — which we are doing a fine job of by the way.
“When Roe v. Wade was overturned, the administration said let the states handle it. When he wants to close the Department of Education at the federal level, he says let the states handle it. But when it comes to elections — where states and local governments are doing a helluva good job — then the president wants to recommend and take over.”
Santoni said he hopes the order goes through the legal process and is tossed out.
“But let’s see how this all plays out,” he said.
The other commissioners, Christian Leinbach and Michael Rivera, agreed the situation is something to monitor, but likely will not require any immediate reaction by the county.
Also at Thursday’s meeting, the board discussed the latest ruling in the long-running legal dispute over whether to count undated and incorrectly dated mail ballots.
On March 31, a federal judge ruled that election boards in Pennsylvania may not invalidate mail ballots simply because they lack accurate, handwritten dates on their exterior return envelopes.
Berks, along with the Republican National Committee, submitted arguments in the case stating that the dates help combat voting fraud.
In the decision, U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter noted there was no evidence entered into the record demonstrating how this requirement furthers that purported interest.
The exterior envelope dating mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, she ruled, by impairing the right to vote under the First and 14th amendments.
Kauffman said the Republican National Committee filed an appeal Wednesday.
The latest ruling is in line with previous decisions from lower courts deeming it unconstitutional to toss these ballots. But higher courts — including the state Supreme Court — have blocked those decisions from taking effect.
Source: Berkshire mont