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The Pennsylvania state Senate passed legislation on Wednesday prohibiting ballot drop boxes and private funds used to manage elections.
By a narrow margin of 29-20, the chamber advanced Senate Bill 1200 to eliminate the use of drive-through ballot returns. The revised election code will “require an elector choosing to return a ballot to a county board of elections, return it to an employee.”
However, the employee whom the voter chooses must be “located in the county seat of the county board of elections.”
Moreover, if a constituent cannot submit the ballot personally, the board of elections will grant an absentee ticket to an authorized representative designated by the balloter. Furthermore, if the elector cannot obtain an approved appointee, the county will provide one or petition a judge to nominate a deputy as an acting substitute.
The Senate’s decision arrives almost two years after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in favor of extending the state’s 2020 deadline to vote by mail and the utilization of drop boxes.
With bipartisan support, the plenum agreed to prohibit private investments from influencing election procedures. Thus, “Zuckerbucks” are now forbidden in the Keystone State. Elections are typically funded by the government using tax dollars, but that wasn’t the case in 2020. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg contributed millions of dollars across the nation to fund election operations through CTCL.
A report released by Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., revealed that the “vote-generating group,” primarily funded by the tech billionaire, gave 90 percent of its dollars to blue counties in swing states. Pennsylvania received over 20 million dollars from the group backed by Zuckerburg.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives will vote on the bills in the coming weeks.