Shapiro and Garrity share election reform thoughts

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(The Center Square) – Gov. Josh Shapiro and State Treasurer Stacy Garrity have differing opinions on a wide variety of issues impacting Pennsylvanians, including the state’s voting laws.

Since Shapiro was elected governor in 2022, he’s implemented a few reforms to the state’s election law, which has been at the center of contentious debates since the commonwealth approved near-universal mail-in voting in 2019.

Reforms proposed by Republicans, who controlled both chambers at the time, were bolstered by questions about election integrity following former President Joe Biden's only term in the White House. At the time, the party wanted to enact voter ID, a five-day pre-canvassing window, curbside voting, ballot drop boxes and uniform rules for curing defective ballots. 

Former Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the bill because of its voter ID provision, though he later walked back his opposition. During the gubernatorial debate earlier this month, Shapiro said he’d consider a voter ID bill should it reach his desk.

Until then, Shapiro has made other moves, including implementing automatic voter registration for eligible Pennsylvanians obtaining driver's licenses and ID cards at PennDOT driver and photo license centers in 2023.

Later that same year, Shapiro also announced that mail-in ballots were being redesigned to reduce errors and confusion for voters.

During a campaign event in south Philadelphia, alongside Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in late September, The Center Square asked Shapiro what other reforms he’d like to see become reality. 

He first noted the pending post-election majorities in the House and Senate before backing support for precanvassing and same-day voter registration.

Precanvassing involves inspecting and opening mail-in and absentee ballots prior to Election Day, as is done in 47 other states.

Shapiro told The Center Square that the reforms would knock down some of the barriers he says the Republican-controlled Senate has erected in recent years.

“I'm for enfranchisement,” Shapiro continued. “Unfortunately, they've got a history, whether in court or whether in stopping smart bills from reaching my desk, they've got a history of engaging in disenfranchisement.”

The Center Square also directed several questions to the Republican nominee’s campaign, including which reforms to Pennsylvania’s election laws Treasurer Stacy Garrity would like to see if she were elected.

“My administration’s view on elections is simple: It should be easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” Garrity’s campaign said in a statement. “That is why I will advocate for common sense Voter ID legislation that will both secure and strengthen our elections, while also returning confidence to our electoral process that has eroded in recent years.”  

Then, Garrity took a jab at Shapiro for not enacting Voter ID during his first term. 

“Yet over the past 4 years, Josh Shapiro has bent over backwards to block Voter ID at a time when confidence in our electoral process continues to be far too low,” she continued. “Voter ID is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans and if you need an ID to complete the most basic of tasks in our communities, it is completely reasonable to require a valid ID to participate in the most important civic duty we have as Americans."

Pennsylvania’s current voting laws require first-time voters at a given polling location to present ID to vote.

Polling over the past few years does indicate that voter ID is popular in Pennsylvania and beyond.

A Franklin and Marshall College poll conducted in June 2021 showed that 74% of Pennsylvanians who responded said that they think voters should be required to show ID at the polls. A Pew Research Center survey in 2025 showed that nationally, more than 9 in 10 Republicans (95%) and about 7 in 10 Democrats (71%) favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.

It is unclear what Garrity’s positions are on pre-canvassing ballots and same-day voter registration.

Shapiro, meanwhile, has thrown support behind open primaries, even going as far as endorsing a proposal pending in the state Senate, House Bill 280. He recently told The Center Square that it was a “common-sense bill.”

Seventy-seven percent of Pennsylvanians favor an open primary system, according to a Franklin & Marshall College poll from 2024. Nearly a third (31%) of voters said that allowing independents to vote in open primaries would make them likely to change their party registration.

The Garrity campaign did not respond to a request for comment from The Center Square asking for her stance on Pennsylvania’s primary election laws.

In 2025, House Speaker Joanna McClinton’s Voting Rights Protection Act of 2025 passed the state House along party lines. That legislation features several reforms, including implementing in-person early voting up to 11 days prior to election day, increasing the number of ballot drop boxes, adding prepaid postage to mail-in ballots, and creating a post-election audit process.

It too has not advanced in the upper chamber. With just a handful of days left in the legislative session, it’s unlikely to see action.

Shapiro and Garrity also appear to be at odds with mail-in voting. 

President Donald Trump, during his second term, said he would “lead a movement” to end mail-in voting.

Earlier this year, Shapiro took legal action against the administration over an executive order they claimed attacks mail-in voting, for which Shapiro has long advocated.

Garrity, on the other hand, has pointed to Florida as a model for elections and said mail-in voting would remain in place until the next administration.

“I don’t like mail-in voting, but mail-in voting is what we have right now in the state of Pennsylvania, and so we’re gonna have to embrace it until we have a change in the governor’s mansion,” Garrity said in response to a question from the Pennsylvania Capital-Star in 2025.

“So if you don’t embrace mail-in voting, that’s like being in a hundred-yard dash and giving your opponent a 50-yard head start,” she added. “So while it’s here to stay, I think we have to do everything that we can to embrace it.”

Garrity has said she voted by mail in the current election.

On the campaign trail for the past few years, Shapiro also touted his record as the state’s attorney general during the 2020 election as attempts were made by Trump to challenge the legitimacy of Pennsylvania’s election.