Law to help purge voter rolls
HARRISBURG – The names of the dead will be more easily purged from voter rolls under legislation the governor signed into Pennsylvania law on Friday. Bucks County Sen. Robert Wonderling’s bill requires local registrars to now send copies of death certificates to county board of elections for the purposes of updating voter registration lists.
Wonderling, who’s been working to get the language into law for two years, said the change would help eliminate voter fraud.
“If you have duplicates or deceased individuals on voter rolls, it creates the potential for election fraud,” he said. “What Pennsylvanians want, especially before an election, is an election with integrity.”
The measure will go into effect in 60 days, and so will not impact the Nov. 7 election. Wonderling said in most cases it’s simply a matter of transferring the certificates from one area of county government to another.
“Increasingly, this is nothing more than a data management issue,” he said.
In 2004, Republicans did a survey they said showed 15 percent of Philadelphia’s voter rolls were dead individuals.
The measure is part of legislation that also regulates the disposal of dead bodies and fetal remains.
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Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com.