By GILLIAN McGOLDRICK

The Philadelphia Inquirer

HARRISBURG (TNS) — After years of opposing such a measure, Pennsylvania Democrats are poised on Tuesday to allow a vote in the state House on a bill that, if passed, would create new ID requirements to vote in the commonwealth, alongside long-sought election law reforms.

The vote is the first step towards breaking a yearslong stalemate over election law in Pennsylvania, as House Democrats show a willingness to negotiate on a top GOP priority — in exchange for a wide range of reforms aimed at expanding ballot access and streamlining election administration.

Lawmakers in the state House of Representatives will take separate votes Tuesday on measures split across two bills: one sponsored by Rep. Tom Mehaffie (R., Cumberland) with the proposed voter ID provisions and another sweeping bill authored by House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) to establish early in-person voting in the state, allow counties to process mail ballots before election day, eliminate the date requirement for mail-in ballots, among other changes.

Under the proposal expected to come before lawmakers Tuesday, Pennsylvania voters would be required to show ID every time they cast a ballot. The bill includes a wide-ranging list of accepted forms of voter ID, from photo identification to state-issued voter registration cards and utility bills.

If voters do not have an approved form of identification when voting, they would have the option to sign an affidavit attesting to their identity or ask a friend or relative to sign paperwork vouching for them, according to the bill, House Bill 771.

Pennsylvania voters are currently required to show ID only the first time they cast a ballot at a polling location, and present proof of ID every time they apply for a mail ballot.

If approved, both the bills would head to the GOP-controlled Senate. New voter ID provisions are still a several steps away from becoming law in Pennsylvania, and if passed in the current form, would not take effect until the 2027 elections. The legislation will not impact the upcoming May 20 primary election.

However, a top Senate Republican leader said that if Democrats are willing to negotiate on voter ID, it “unlocks the opportunity to have discussion on a number of issues that have not been able to advance over the last two years.” (Republicans prefer a constitutional change over a statutory change like the one expected to pass Tuesday, since voter ID statutory changes have previously been struck down by the courts.)

“There are a number of items that are out there for conversation — the pre-canvassing issue, the early voting issue, sameday voter registration issue — all those conversations we’re willing to have, so long that we have confidence in the integrity of the process,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) earlier this year. “The most significant thing we can do to ensure the integrity of the process is to require voter ID.”

Changing tides on voter ID in Pennsylvania For years, updates to Pennsylvania’s election laws have stalled in the General Assembly as Democrats were unwilling to consider voter ID requirements, while Republicans viewed the issue as a requirement for any future election law changes.

But times have changed.

Even the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, a longtime opponent of voter ID policies that successfully argued before the state’s appellate courts to overturn prior voter ID laws, does not oppose the bill.

Liz Randol, the organization’s legislative director, said lawmakers had crafted the bill in a way that avoided the voter disenfranchisement and constitutionality concerns that prior policies had brought.

The ACLU, Randol said, still believes the policy is an unnecessary response to a problem that doesn’t exist. Expanded voter ID requirements are often proposed as way to prevent voter fraud, but there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the United States. The ACLU historically opposed voter ID proposals over concerns that they’d block eligible voters from casting ballots.

But the House proposal, she said, is “benign.”

“It does not run afoul of a lot of the concerns that the ACLU has typically had from a legal perspective,” she said, adding that the organization’s position would change if the General Assembly altered the bill to limit the forms of acceptable ID or eliminate options for voters to fill out an affidavit in lieu of an ID.

Despite their party’s changing stance, some Democrats will likely oppose the voter ID expansions in a vote on the bill Tuesday. The election law changes, meanwhile, in a separate bill, are likely to pass the House with broad Democratic support.

Pennsylvania Democrats have broadly rejected ID requirement expansions in the past due to concerns that they would create new barriers to cast a ballot and disenfranchise voters, while doing little to address voter fraud concerns.

For some, those concerns linger.

“If we want to solve issues of voter irregularity and voter fraud, we should solve issues of voter irregularity and voter fraud,” said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D., Philadelphia) during a committee meeting last week about the latest voter ID bill. “Frankly, this bill does not accomplish that.”

The voter ID bill is likely on Tuesday to pass the state House — where Democrats hold a narrow majority — without a majority of Democratic support, and continue to the Republican-controlled state Senate, where it will likely be approved.

Still, the fact the House Democratic leaders are expected to allow a floor vote on the voter ID bill signals an acknowledgement that the concept is widely popular among Pennsylvanians — and a desire to compromise with Senate Republicans. Negotiating on voter ID could allow Democrats to secure the long-sought election law changes that county election administrators have been begging for.

Some long-sought changes still missing Lawmakers from both parties may feel a sense of urgency to address Pennsylvania counties’ issues ahead of the midterm election next year, after a number of issues arose during the 2024 presidential election.

State courts issued conflicting rulings on whether undated ballots should be counted just days before Election Day. Bucks County was ordered to allow an additional day of in-person mail-in voting after people spent hours waiting in line for the state’s arduously slow version of early voting. And election officials spent the months before the election warning voters results may not be available on election night because of state law blocking them from processing mail ballots until Election Day.

McClinton’s sweeping reform bill seeks to address several of these items, in many ways crossing off a wish list for advocates and election officials.

The bill requires all counties to notify voters whose mail ballots may not be counted and creates more detailed regulations around drop boxes.

By eliminating the date requirement for mail ballots, the bill addresses an issue that has been tied up in courts for years.

And establishing early in-person voting may avoid the long lines that plagued election offices in the days leading up to the 2024 election.

“It sort of has sort of something for everyone,” Randol said.

However, GOP lawmakers and election officials say the bill still does not address some of the biggest issues with Pennsylvania’s election code, including a mail ballot application deadline that allows voters to apply for ballots so close to election day that the postal service may not deliver it on time.

Rep. Brad Roae (R., Crawford) offered an amendment Monday to the bill to strip all of McClinton’s proposed election law changes and replace them with one addition: Change the deadline to apply for a mail ballot from seven days to 14 days, as counties have long requested.

“This is a provision I think everybody could agree with. All the counties want this done,” Roae said. “The other provisions [in the bill] are very complicated, very expensive, very unworkable.”

The amendment failed in the state House along party lines, in a 101-102 vote, alongside several other amendments offered by Republicans. One GOP-offered amendment was approved and removed the option for 16-year-old residents to pre-register to vote in the state. The option remains for 17-year-old students to do so, joining many states across the country to try to ensure young voters are prepared to vote as soon as they are eligible.

Thad Hall, the election director in Mercer County, said significant changes would be needed to make the bill work for small counties.

Some of the policies, he said, appeared written for Pennsylvania’s larger counties with dozens or hundreds of staff members. The bill requires early voting be available on the weekend and that counties have two drop boxes, checked daily by two workers. While a big county may manage this easily, Hall said it would be burdensome for counties with just one or two election workers.

“It doesn’t help your cause if you don’t consult smaller counties and you put things in there that legitimately would undermine our ability to do our work,” he said.

But the concepts were on the right track, Hall said, noting that he was bracing for a “s— show” in 2026 if early in-person voting is not approved by then.

“I am grateful that somebody in leadership took the time to actually put together a bill that, even if it’s not perfect, at least it has the good moving parts in it that could be fixed,” he added.