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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2019 - 2020
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | September 30, 2020 02:19 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Mario M. Scavello |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Use of School Buildings as Polling Places during COVID-19 |
| In the near future, I will be introducing legislation seeking commonsense options for the use of schools as polling places during this pandemic. As we all know, 2020 is a general election year. One thing we should be thinking about now is the fact that many schools are used as polling places for elections. It is not wise to have schools physically open as polling places, potentially allowing thousands of people into the schools to vote during a pandemic. This not only defeats the goal of trying to limit community spread, but it also presents unsafe and disruptive conditions at a time when we are all focused on keeping school buildings open for safe, in-person instruction. The safest, easiest solution is to give individual school entities the option to refrain from using its school buildings as polling places this year. Any school building that is to be used as a polling place in the November 2020 general election should be closed for instruction on election day – and at least the day after - to sanitize all physical areas of the school where polling stations were placed. My legislation will provide for both options. If you would like to join me in co-sponsoring this important legislation, please sign-on by Noon on Friday October 2, 2020. If you have any questions regarding this legislation, please contact Christine Zubeck in my office at 717-787-6123 or czubeck@pasen.gov. Thank you for your consideration. |
Introduced as SB1344