There is a running joke with those of us who regularly attend the weekly Lycoming County Commissioners Meeting. We know it means a long meeting when we see a short agenda. We could call it the Lyco Comm Law — the shorter the agenda, the longer they talk, talk, talk about each agenda item.
At the Thursday, February 10th meeting, however, the talk, talk, talk had some very valuable information. It kicked in with a simple recognition of Jill Shuman for ten years of service with the Voter Services Office. Forrest Lehman, director of the Department of Voter Services for Lycoming County, gave high praise to Jill. (Which I greatly concur with as she has helped me on a number of occasions.) But Forrest went beyond this to share with the public the battle zone that elections in our country and especially Pennsylvania now face.
A little background is needed. According to our US Constitution, our country conducts a census of our population every ten years. These results then determine the geographical designations that will become the districts that elected officials will represent. This applies to the federal government, our US House of Representatives, state government, PA State Senators, and PA State House Representatives.
Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, there is a built-in flaw in this constitutional mandate. Whoever draws the map can design it to favor one political party over another. For two hundred years, whoever controlled the legislature at the time of redistricting had the flexibility to realign the new districts in a way that would favor their party. Known as ‘gerrymandering,’ named after Elbridge Gerry, one of the Founding Fathers and fifth vice-president of the United States, who shamelessly ‘gerrymandered’ in his state of Massachusetts, it now describes contorting an electoral district outside traditional boundaries toward favoring one party more than another.
Now, to bring us up to date, Pennsylvania is vexed in two directions on this mandatory redistricting. The first complication is that on a national level, the US House of Representatives, our population loss is causing Pennsylvania to be losing a seat. This means that our present eighteen congressional districts must be redrawn into seventeen.
The second dilemma is for the PA House and Senate redesigned districts. In both cases, the committees that drew them up were rejected by Governor Wolf, which means these are now being brought before the courts to decide.
After Forrest Lehman gave deserved praise to Jill Shuman, he made a “housekeeping announcement” related to the upcoming elections. Because the State Supreme Court is not conducting a hearing until February 18th, the petitions to get on the ballot that were to begin on February 15th have been postponed until further notice. Supposedly, these petitions to get on the ballot were to be from February 15th until March 8th. It is a bit of a conundrum because without petitions to get on the ballot; there cannot be an election because there would be no one on the ballot!
When this mess happened after the last redistricting, it could not be worked out in time, and the districts were not changed until the next election cycle. This may happen again, but no one knows. The US Congressional redistricting, however, must be resolved because of the loss of one congressman for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. How that will get resolved by May 17th in time for the general primary remains to be seen.
And one last thing to keep in mind this election cycle. As noted in this column a few weeks ago, there are still scammers going door-to-door pretending to be Lycoming County Voter Services employees. Apparently, they have been quite brazen in seeking to obtain personal identifying information such as your date of birth, driver’s license number, or Social Security number. Call Voter Services at (570) 327-2267 to report any suspicious encounters. Voter Services is open Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
