Tomorrow's primary elections will reveal whether voters' anger over last year's legislative pay-raise fiasco really persists and whether incumbent lawmakers need to be fearful about their fate in the Nov. 7 general election.

It is to be hoped that a big voter turnout will answer those questions, not a small fragment of the eligible electorate, as is so often the case in the spring balloting.

Voters should keep in mind that tomorrow will be their first opportunity to pass judgment on their legislators since the 2 a.m. vote last July 7 in which lawmakers gave themselves raises of 16 percent to 34 percent without advance notice of the pending action and without public legislative debate.

Voters also should recall that lawmakers apparently violated the state constitution in the manner in which they considered the pay-raise legislation — ignoring prohibitions regarding changing the intent and language of proposed legislation after introduction of the measure, as well as failure to adhere to rules regarding how much time must elapse before a measure is voted upon after being introduced.

Then, in an even worse display of arrogance after passing the pay-raise measure, some lawmakers opted to take their raise immediately in the form of "unvouchered expenses," despite the state constitution's stipulation that lawmakers cannot receive a raise during the legislative term in which the raise is approved.

These are the same lawmakers who have been incapable of assembling workable and acceptable property tax reform after months of work under a designated special legislative session — and after two other flawed property tax reform initiatives failed miserably in recent years.

Now, all seats in the state House are up for election in this year's two ballotings plus half of the Senate seats. In addition, a gubernatorial election also is part of the voting, but there won't be any suspense on that front until the fall campaign, when former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swann will try to unseat Gov. Ed Rendell.

One important point voters must keep in mind when going to the polls tomorrow — indeed, when contemplating whether they ought to go to the polls at all — is that if a wave of anti-incumbency fails to materialize at the ballot box this year in regard to seats in the General Assembly, voters will have, in effect, handed incumbent lawmakers a blank check to enrich themselves at taxpayers' expense by whatever degree they choose to pursue. The idea of holding elected officials responsible for their actions, a basic principle of politics and government throughout this nation's history, will have been breached.

Once that happens, powerful politicians like Senate President Pro Tempore Robert C. Jubelirer (Blair County) and House Speaker John M. Perzel (Philadelphia) will be free to exert their will and their insatiable desire for power and personal enrichment to the detriment of all state residents, especially those struggling with day-to-day challenges resulting from low-paying jobs and steadily rising taxes and expenses.

Jubelirer, who is in a tough race for re-election this year, was one of the chief architects of the pay raise. Meanwhile, Perzel should be remembered for his abject arrogance in the wake of the pay-raise approval, in brushing off any suggestion that the raise was wrong and should be repealed.

He was proven wrong when a tsunami of voter outrage swept over the commonwealth.

Both Jubelirer and Perzel are among the many incumbents who deserve to be dismissed from their skewed vision of public service.

The headline of a July 20, 2005, editorial in the Butler Eagle should cause all Pennsylvania voters to reflect on what's at stake tomorrow.

"Pay-raise vote shows pols know voters are all bark and no bite," the headline proclaimed. It is the duty of voters tomorrow — and on Nov. 7 — to prove the incumbent lawmakers' assumption wrong.