Pa Primary results thread/discussion

This was a primary with nothing. Really contested on either side of the aisle, with most races simply having one candidate.. so nothing structurally was driving turnout on either side, so low turnout isn’t surprising… but lowest turnout in over a decade is surprising and democrats turning out nearly 4-1 is unusual.

Even on this boring elections my district turnout is generally 50-50 or close to it.

It is pretty clear at least in my district democrats shows up and republicans didn’t. Whether this is a harbinger of something coming this fall, or not I can’t say, but it’s clear Dems appear to be more motivated to show up.

But like I said overall turnout was by far the lowest of any election I’ve worked (10+ years of working every primary, general and special election)

Actually this was the first race since they started using the paper ballots again that we did not have a single spoiled ballot.. of course we only had 70 total ballots cast, but still we are almost always good for at least 1 or 2 minimal.. as people go outside the lines, or vote for too many, or something.

My experience with spoiled ballots is, it is not party driven. D’s and R’s do stupid things fairly equally when voting.

“Stupid Questions” that come up at least once every election:

Do I need to/where do I sign my ballot?

No, just like you should have learned in grade school civics, it is a secret ballot, there should be NOTHING on your ballot that can tie that ballot back to you, that defeats the entire reason for having secret ballots.

PA got rid of the touch screen voting system in 2020. Yet every election you will get someone say:

“What we aren’t using the touchscreens anymore?” And no, its not someone who hasn’t voted since 2020. These are people that vote in every single election reliably.. I see them every election and it never fails one of them will ask that question.

In terms of paperwork the thing that has added the most BS to the process is the whole mail in voting BS. PA used to require you to offer a rational for a mail in ballot, and there were only so many valid reasons allowed. (Out of Country, travelling, illness, work etc, but you had to make a request and have a valid reason to get a mail in ballot... then the whole anyone can request one for any reason, and that’s when the whole paperwork side of things went crazy.

Nearly every election you have a few people who want to surrender their mail in and vote in person.. so there is a set of paperwork for that.. Not the worst, but still.. Or you have someone show up and wants to vote in person, but the county says they already voted via mail (Often these are very elderly people, who in all honestly probably did vote by mail, but just have forgotten).. so, now we get to have the fun of doing the whole provisional ballot for them... Or show up wanting to vote in person, but requested a ballot by mail, but didn’t bring their ballot to surrender, so you explain they can go back home and get their mail in ballot, or we can have them do a provisional ballot. Most are fine, but still a pain in the butt doing another provisional ballot... but every so often you’ll get one demanding to vote regular even though the county says they mailed them a ballot and they don’t have it to surrender... and try to argue with you that they can vote normal and shouldn’t have to do provisional... Not often, but it does happen.

The stupid anyone can mail in vote for any reason has added nothing but additional BS to the process.. Not to mention PA mail in is for the entire cycle... SO, if you know you will be out of town in November, you can’t just request mail in for november, you have to request before the primary, and will get a mail in for both, even if you plan to vote in person in the primary...

The number of “issues” we have to deal with are relatively low no matter what, as we are a very small district 394 total registered voters. However, before the whole universal mail in crap... we might have 1 person ever few election cycles, that for whatever reason wasn’t in the book and we’d have to call downtown and get them to verify and deal with it. To now, where we are dealing with the very least paperwork for mail in surrender for a few folks and provisionally having folks vote at least a few each cycle on average.

This last one, no provisionals, and 2 surrenders.. probably the lightest paperwork in 5 years...

Yes, the GOP hasn’t truly “taken the field” for the Governor’s race in a long long time... hell half the time they don’t even take the field in Senate races...

Of course the time they did finally decide to go all in was for the biggest POS I’ve ever seen when they tried to put lipstick on OZ and try to sell his carpetbagging slimeball ass as a conservative man of the people... The folks in the GOP behind that BS should all be drawn and quartered.

The PA GOP fought harder to kill Kathy Barnette in that race than they had ever fought against any Democrat Ever...

Harrisburg is, in many ways, an ever bigger and uglier swamp than DC.. the PA STATE GOP are feckless and usless.

We shall see, but I think you are offering more hope than reality.

Unemployment in PA is actually down.

I know the GOP is pushing that as their argument, but I sure personally don’t see anywhere near the pain where the economy is going to cause Shapiro to lose.

I would love to see Shapiro lose, but looking at the tea leaves at this point, Shapiro should win comfortably.

He’s got 38M in the bank, vs Garrity 1.4M, he’s up nearly 20 in every poll so far.

We’ll see where things happen in the fall. Wolf, who was absolute crap, won re election by over 17 points in 2018.

I really don’t think, sadly, that Garrit has any real shot at even making this race close.

Time will tell

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