News & Brews October 17, 2022
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Governor’s race breaks spending records
Pennsylvania is seeing new spending records—both high and low—in the race for governor. The $44 million Democrat Josh Shapiro has spent (including in-kind contributions) sets a new high for candidate spending in a governor’s race, the AP reports. Meanwhile, the less than $3 million Republican Doug Mastriano has spent is “less than any other major party nominee in at least the past two decades.”
As Wolf admin doubles-down on mail-in ballots, some counties are not convinced
On Friday, the Wolf administration doubled-down on guidance that undated mail-in ballots should be counted, although conceding that lawsuits surrounding the ballots are possible. Yet, despite the administration’s current guidance, which does not require that undated ballots be segregated, some counties plan to separate the ballots anyway, in case lawsuits arise. Spotlight PA has more.
WSJ: ‘A mail-vote time bomb in Pennsylvania’
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board predicts potential mayhem in counting Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballots this November, following the recent U.S. Supreme Court order vacating the Third Circuit ruling that undated mail-in ballots should be counted. “Practically,” the Ed Board writes, “this merely means that [undated mail-in ballots will] be litigated afresh if the unfortunate opportunity arises after November.” Why does this sound familiar?
Pa. ranks ‘so-so’ in political engagement study
WalletHub set out to study which states have the most—and least—political involvement. The methodology, as described by PennLive, involved “comparing all 50 states across 10 key metrics (‘Percentage of Registered Voters in the 2020 Presidential Election;’ ‘Total Political Contributions per Adult Population;’ ‘Civic Education Engagement;’ etc.) and grading each on a scale of 100.” Pennsylvania came out pretty smack-dab in the middle, at 24. The top five politically involved states were Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, and Oregon. Check out the full study here.