HARRISBURG – Sen. Doug Mastriano (PA-33) successfully offered an amendment to ensure timely removal of deceased registered voters from the SURE system.
The amendment clearly states that Department of Health must provide notice of a deceased individual to a county election commission within seven days of the individual’s death. Under current statute, the Department of Health can wait up to 60 days to report the deceased individual.
The amendment was part of a larger bill co-sponsored by Mastriano and introduced by Sen. Ryan Aument (R-36) that will clean up voter rolls (SURE system) to prevent fraud and abuse. Senate Bill 1018 will accomplish the following:
- Provide counties with extra abilities and data to remove duplicate and incorrect data.
- Implement an annual audit of each part of the SURE system, supporting architecture, connected systems, and security framework.
- Instruct counties to instigate and take appropriate action to cancel dead voters in SURE system.
- Use lists to ensure those over the age of 100 are alive and able to vote.
“In 2020 report, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) provided the Department of State with the names of at least 21,000 deceased registrants who remained on the voter rolls less than a month before the 2020 election,” said Sen. Mastriano. “We must avoid this kind of egregious error in the future. My amendment will allow counties to have the most up to date information to ensure registration records are accurate and that all deceased voters are removed from the rolls well before an election.”
Senate Bill 1018 now advances to the full Senate for consideration.
Mastriano has introduced a comprehensive package of election integrity bills this session. This package includes bills that would eliminate mass mail-in voting (Senate Bill 884), mandate voter ID for all forms of voting (Senate Bill 735), and expand and empower poll watchers (Senate Bill 573).