Better Elections

Doug Mastriano is second to no one, even his mentor Donald Trump, in the breathtaking audacity of his efforts to suborn voting rights.

In the late fall of 2021, Republicans in the Pennsylvania State Senate pursued what they called a forensic audit of voter rolls, ostensibly to verify voters’ identities. A Senator at the time, current Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano pledged, and has since reiterated, that he would:

• empty, AKA completely flush, voter rolls

• require all Pennsylvanians to re-register in order to be able to vote in future elections

Thankfully, federal law prohibits that last action. But legality and constitutionality appear to be of no concern to Mr. Mastriano. In June of this year, he said The most important thing is I get to appoint the secretary of state and that secretary of state is going to clean up the election laws.  We’re going to reset, in fact, registration. You’re going to have to re-register. We’re going to start all over again. ... I saw better elections in Afghanistan than I saw in Pennsylvania.

That last statement is both incorrect and draconian. Mr. Mastriano was not, to the best of GOTV's knowledge, in Afghanistan during its most recent election in 2014.