Move Afoot To Delay 2022 Pennsylvania Primary

HARRISBURG, PA — A state lawmaker plans to introduce legislation to postpone the state's 2022 primary election from May 17 until Aug 2. All other primary-related deadlines would be delayed accordingly.

Rep. Russ Diamond believes the postponement could be necessary because of redistricting delays. The Lebanon County Republican said the postponement also "would provide an opportunity to clean up Pennsylvania's voter rolls."

Diamond's legislation also would prohibit voter data from the existing Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE) system to be transferred to a new system being implemented by the Department of State.

"Essentially, every voter in the commonwealth would be required to re-register to vote while providing proof of citizenship and residency," Diamond wrote Thursday in a letter to colleagues.

In 2019, former state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale's office audited the SURE system and found more than 50,000 cases of potentially inaccurate voter records. DePasquale said at the time that the Department of State doesn't adequately document that it regularly monitors each county’s work to verify data is entered correctly and that the system lacked sufficient tools to help prevent data entry errors.

Diamond said the integrity of the state's overall electoral process would continue to be questioned as long as questions remain about the integrity of the voter data the SURE system manages.

"An upgrade to a more modernized SURE system with more bells and whistles will not do one bit of good if the data it manages is riddled with errant and/or outdated voter information," he said.

Diamond's memo came a day after former President Donald Trump also was highly critical of the SURE system in a letter published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.

Trump quoted at length the purported SURE system findings of Audit the Vote PA, an organization that has made unsubstantiated claims that there was widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania that led to Joe Biden winning Pennsylvania and the presidency.

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