By Katie Meyer
WITF
October 25, 2017
Harrisburg — State representatives are trying to figure out how to stop voter registration glitches that have allowed over 500 non-citizens to vote in state and national elections since 2000.
That was the focus of a state government committee hearing Wednesday.
But after dissolving into partisan shouting matches several times, lawmakers left the session saying they don’t agree on how to handle the situation — or even how serious it is.
Over the last 17 years, roughly 93 million ballots have been cast in Pennsylvania. At least 544 of them came from non-US citizens who were in the country legally, according to the Department of State. That’s roughly one out of every 172,000.
But that number only includes people who reported they’d improperly registered. DOS officials said they’re looking into whether there are more.
Election Commissioner Jonathan Marks said the problem stems from a glitch that will be fixed within a few months.
Daryl Metcalfe, the Republican committee chair who initiated the hearing, said he thinks the DOS is withholding information about how many illegal votes have been cast.
“They know the people of Pennsylvania would be very offended to find out that there’s a large number of foreign nationals voting in our elections and canceling out rightful votes of our citizens,” Metcalfe said.
He also said he thinks the situation has something to do with former Secretary of State Pedro Cortes’s sudden, unexplained resignation this month–a theory that is not confirmed.
“We brought this to Secretary Cortes’s attention a year ago,” Metcalfe said. “And then when they were asked why did he depart, well, they couldn’t say he didn’t depart because of this, which has been a lot of the speculation from many people, because his departure was so quick.”
