Photo: A gun rights advocate with an “I VOTED” sticker on his holster gathers with others for an annual rally on the steps of the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Monday, May 6, 2019. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Two Pennsylvania lawmakers introduced a bill in February that would prohibit guns inside a building where votes were being cast

By Matt Vasilogambros And Kim Lyons

Penn-Capital- Star

March 24, 2024 – Two Pennsylvania lawmakers introduced a bill in February that would prohibit guns inside a building where votes were being cast.

Facing increased threats to election workers and superheated political rhetoric from former President Donald Trump and his supporters, more states are considering firearm bans at polling places and ballot drop boxes ahead of November’s presidential election.

This month, New Mexico became the latest state to restrict guns where people vote or hand in ballots, joining at least 21 other states with similar laws — some banning either open or concealed carry but most banning both.

Nine of those prohibitions were enacted in the past two years, as states have sought to prevent voter intimidation or even violence at the polls driven by Trump’s false claims of election rigging. At least six states are debating bills that would ban firearms at polling places or expand existing bans to include more locations.

In Pennsylvania, state Reps. Tim Brennan (D-Bucks) and Mary Jo Daley (D-Montgomery) introduced a bill in February that would prohibit the carrying of firearms at all polling places. House Bill 2077 would not apply to law enforcement or military personnel on duty at polling places, and anyone licensed to carry a firearm could keep the firearm in their vehicle while voting, but not bring it into the building where votes are being cast.

“Over the years, we have heard more and more about voters and election workers being threatened, harassed, or intimidated at polling places,” the two write in a memo for HB 2077. “As a result, many voters have expressed concerns about voting in person at their assigned polling location, and many voting districts have struggled to find or retain volunteers to work at such locations.”

Daley told the Capital-Star that when she was a committee member in the 1990s she remembers someone coming to a polling place with a gun and it frightened the poll workers. “And we were in a much more peaceful time then,” she said. Daley added she has introduced similar legislation several times but with Democrats in the minority in the House until 2022, there was little chance of it moving forward.

HB 2077 was referred to the House State Government committee March 5. “I think it’d be great to bring it up because quite honestly, we have some members who talk about the value of life, but that doesn’t seem to bear out all lives,” Daley said.

“When you think of elections in Pennsylvania, it’s a community activity,” Daley added. “But it doesn’t mean that some communities aren’t really struggling with this issue.”

New Mexico law
The New Mexico measure, which was supported entirely by Democrats, applies to within 100 feet of polling places and 50 feet of ballot drop boxes. People who violate the law are subject to a petty misdemeanor charge that could result in six months in jail.

“Our national climate is increasingly polarized,” said Democratic state Rep. Reena Szczepanski, one of the bill’s sponsors. “Anything we can do to turn the temperature down and allow for the safe operation of our very basic democratic right, voting, is critical.”

She told Stateline that she and her co-sponsors were inspired to introduce the legislation after concerned Santa Fe poll workers, who faced harassment by people openly carrying firearms during the 2020 presidential election, reached out to them.

Our national climate is increasingly polarized. Anything we can do to turn the temperature down and allow for the safe operation of our very basic democratic right, voting, is critical.

The bill carved out an exception for people with concealed carry permits and members of law enforcement. Still, every Republican in the New Mexico legislature opposed the measure; many said they worried that gun owners might get charged with a crime for accidentally bringing their firearm to the polling place.

“We have a lot of real crime problems in this state,” said House Minority Floor Leader Ryan Lane, a Republican, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last month. “It’s puzzling to me why we’re making this a priority.”

But over the past several years, national voting rights and gun violence prevention advocates have been sounding the alarm over increased threats around elections, pointing to ballooning disinformation, looser gun laws, record firearm sales and vigilantism at polling locations and ballot tabulation centers.

In February, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said that the that the turnover among experienced election officials in Pennsylvania counties is “a real concern” ahead of the 2024 elections. Some 70 senior directors or those directly underneath them have left, Schmidt said.

National surveys show that election officials have left the field in droves because of the threats they’re facing, and many who remain in their posts are concerned for their safety.

Add in aggressive rhetoric from Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and it becomes “a storm” that makes it essential for states to pass laws that prohibit guns at polling places, said Robyn Sanders, a Democracy Program counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, a voting rights group based at the New York University School of Law.

“Our democracy has come under new and unnerving pressure based on the emergence of the election denial movement, disinformation and false narratives about the integrity of our elections,” said Sanders, who co-authored a September report on how to protect elections from gun violence. The report was a partnership between the Brennan Center and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

“The presence of guns in these places presents a risk of violence,” she added.

Continue reading VOTING, Fearing Political Violence, More States Ban Firearms At Polling Places →