Security, sanctity, and sanity: It’s time to restore faith in Pennsylvania’s elections

Yesterday was Election Day. Or was it?

The reality is that we no longer have an Election Day in the commonwealth. We have a chaotic, 50-day “election season” that is a logistical nightmare for county officials, a bonanza for lawyers, and a source of deep suspicion for the average citizen. 

When citizens harbor profound doubts about the process or the outcome of an election, the very consent of the governed begins to crumble. In Pennsylvania, we are facing a full-blown crisis of confidence, not because of foreign interference, but because of ill-conceived, partisan changes to our own laws that have sacrificed security for a nebulous standard of “convenience.” This system is broken. It is time to end this failed experiment and restore security, sanctity, and sanity to our electoral process.

The two greatest culprits in this erosion of trust are no-excuse mail-in voting and the protracted “on-demand” early voting window.

Let’s start with no-excuse mail-in balloting. This practice, implemented in haste, severs the vital chain of custody that ensures a vote is cast securely and secretly. It invites the potential for ballot harvesting, where political operatives can go door-to-door “helping” people vote. It relies on unsecured, often unmonitored drop boxes, which are a vulnerability, not a convenience. And it asks overworked county employees to act as forensic handwriting experts, “curing” and verifying ballots with inconsistent standards across 67 counties. This is not a secure system; it is an honor system with no enforcement.

Worse, this extended voting season fundamentally disenfranchises the informed voter. The political landscape is volatile. A campaign is a debate that should conclude on Election Day, not weeks before.

Consider a voter who, wanting to “get it over with,” casts their mail-in ballot on October 10. Then, on October 30, game-changing new information is revealed about their chosen candidate — a “Jay Jones” scenario, a major scandal, a disqualifying gaffe, or a last-minute policy reversal. That voter is now helpless. Their vote is locked in, and they have been effectively denied the right to make a fully informed decision.

This isn’t “expanding access”; it’s incentivizing uninformed, premature voting. It transforms the campaign from a contest of ideas into a logistical race to “bank” votes before the full debate has even concluded.

This leads to the second problem: the devaluation of Election Day itself. When voting is an “on-demand” activity spread over nearly two months, it loses its civic significance. What was once a shared, solemn, communal act — a celebration of democracy — is now just a bureaucratic deadline. This scattered, disjointed model, combining mail-ins, early voting, and a frantic Election Day, creates the very chaos and delayed results that sow distrust.

The solution is not to tinker with this broken framework. It is to replace it with a return to principles that work.

First, we must repeal no-excuse mail-in voting. Absentee ballots should be reserved for those who are genuinely absent or infirm — our military personnel serving overseas, college students, the truly disabled, and those with a valid, verifiable reason for not being able to vote in person. These must be requested, tracked, and returned securely.

Second, we must restore the primacy of Election Day. Abolish the long, drawn-out early voting period. The focus of our civic life should be on a single, secure, and transparent day of voting. This unifies the community, ensures all voters have the same information, and allows for rapid, reliable results. I’m even open to making Election Day a state holiday to ensure everyone has the opportunity to participate.

Third, we must implement a universal, mandatory voter-identification requirement. This is a common-sense measure supported by a vast majority of Americans of all parties. If one needs a government-issued ID to buy cough medicine or board a plane, it is perfectly reasonable to require one to participate in the sacred act of choosing our government. This single step would instantly bolster confidence in the identity of every voter.

This is not about any single election or candidate. This is about the long-term health of our commonwealth. We are told these changes were about “access,” but access without security is a path to anarchy. Pennsylvanians deserve a system that is simple to understand, transparent in its execution, and incredibly difficult to cheat. The current mess fails on all counts. It is time for Harrisburg to show political courage and restore integrity to our vote.

Publius Pax is a tenth-generation Bucks Countian, political consultant, and author.