At their meeting Wednesday, the Butler County board of commissioners discussed a Republican rewrite of the state's voting law that was approved by the House on Tuesday.

The rewrite, which narrowly passed by a 110-91 vote, includes mandatory voter identification, alters registration and ballot-counting deadlines and provides auditing procedures desired by conservatives.

Commissioner Kevin Boozel, who is a Democrat, said the legislation contains some good things, including a provision that would allow county election bureaus to count mail-in ballots in the days before Election Day instead of counting the ballots while operating an election.

He said because of mechanical failure of a machine that ballots were being entered into, Butler was the last county to certify its results in November's presidential election.

Had elections officials been permitted to open mail-in ballots prior to 7 a.m. on Election Day, the county could have certified the votes in a more timely manner, Boozel said.

Boozel said the county could use existing elections workers to open the mail-in ballots ahead of time, which would increase security as opposed to temporary workers performing the task.

He said the GOP bill also contains a provision that would allow ample time to get mail-in ballots to voters and get them back to the elections bureau.

“These are two things that I feel would eliminate about 80% of our strife,” Boozel said.

But Republican Leslie Osche, commissioners chairwoman, said she has concerns about the cost of the voting law should it pass the Senate and not be vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf.

Wolf has said he will veto any legislation he feels contains provisions that could amount to voter suppression.

“We are not currently staffed to be able to handle all that is there,” Osche said.

Even though the state would fund 50% of the new bill's costs, the county could incur $1 million or more in expenses should the law be enacted, Osche said.

Regarding counting the mail-in ballots in the days before an election, Osche said it would not solve the county's workload issues on an election day.

“It might get quicker results, but it adds more work on the front end, which is where our greatest challenge already is,” she said.

Commissioner Kim Geyer said officials at the Department of State, which oversees elections, should communicate with county commissioners and not just elections directors, so that commissioners receive information firsthand.

She said she believes the legislature is proposing a law because they hear a groundswell of voters saying change is needed. Then when it fails, they will be able to say, “We tried.”

“That will be their comeback to us,” Geyer said. “That is the game that is being played.”

All three commissioners agreed that they are frustrated that common-sense voter legislation cannot be hammered out in Harrisburg.

“They should take a page from our book,” Boozel said of the commissioners' ability to get things done despite belonging to different political parties.