WYOMING -- Representatives of a group that wants to increase confidence in election results met with Luzerne County officials this week to discuss improving the election process.
Four representatives of the bipartisan Democracy Defense Project talked to Luzerne County Election Director Emily Cook and County Manager Romilda Crocamo on Wednesday at the county operations building.
Former Pennsylvania House Speaker Keith McCall, a Democrat from Carbon County, was there in person. Three others participated virtually: former Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat from Philadelphia; former U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach, a Republican from Chester County; and former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, a Republican from Allegheny County.
"We want to eliminate all the misrepresentations made about election fraud," McCall said in an interview with reporters following the meeting. "These local election administrators do an outstanding job to maintain the integrity of our elections. What we said in the discussion here is these elections are run by people in the community. They're not run by big brother, big government."
The Democracy Defense Project supports pre-canvassing to expedite the ballot counting process and streamline election day procedures, which would relieve the burden on local poll workers and deliver election results faster. Under current state law in Pennsylvania, pre-canvassing -- beginning the process of preparing and counting early ballots -- cannot begin until the morning of Election Day.
"I think we've become more efficient and better, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done," McCall said.
The group also supports "sensible voter ID laws ensure that every vote is fair and equally counted without excluding eligible voters from the democratic process" and statewide uniformity on drop boxes for mail ballots, voter registration and curing ballot errors.
"We want to end the misinformation because they're the ones on the front lines. These are the workers getting criticized when they shouldn't get criticized at all," McCall said. "The system is working very, very well. But there's still that misinformation out there. It doesn't help when you have someone saying the system is rigged. The system is not rigged. That's what we're trying to combat, and that's why we were created."
President Donald Trump has claimed he lost a "rigged" election in 2020 against Joe Biden and has alleged without proof that Democrats cheated again in 2024. Trump said he won by a margin in 2024 that was "too big to rig."