The county elections director not only agrees with most aspects of a bipartisan elections reform package that was rolled out in Harrisburg on Tuesday, but she also served on the advisory committee that helped produce it.

Shari Brewer first discussed elections reform with state Sen. Mike Folmer, R-48th, in March 2017 because he is the chair of the State Government Committee. That committee oversees elections and other local government functions.

Folmer gathered three other Republican senators and one Democrat, who joined to form the elections reform committee. Brewer was invited to serve on that committee, which advised the senators on the specific challenges faced by elections directors.

“We went to them not with our hands out wanting money, but with ideas on how to make elections more efficient, both administratively and financially,” Brewer said.

The senators this week announced their reform package at a news conference in Harrisburg. The package includes revisions on absentee ballots, loosening restrictions on poll worker requirements, simplifying ballots and allowing voting centers to replace individual municipal precincts.

“The goal of the reforms my Senate colleagues and I are offering is to ensure voters are better able to cast their votes with ease and be assured their votes will be protected and properly counted,” Folmer said.

Brewer said she's most interested in establishing voting centers, which she said would continue to afford voters a polling place close to their homes, while eliminating the headache and expense of providing a polling place in tiny boroughs and townships where only a handful of people vote.

She said some county precincts contain fewer than 50 registered voters. Brewer is aware of another county that contains a precinct with just nine voters. For the last primary election in a presidential election year, Brewer counted a dozen voters in one Butler County precinct.

“These are issues across the state,” Brewer said.

According to current state law, each municipality must have a voting precinct in each election.

“These laws were written in 1937, when some people still used a horse and buggy,” Brewer said. “But today, we are a mobile society and can combine these precincts in voting centers.”

She said her office is required on election days to provide voting equipment, at least three poll workers and, if necessary, equipment to make a polling place compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Brewer has analyzed the costs associated with providing a polling place in each municipality — and in the precinct with 12 voters, the cost to taxpayers was $190 per voter.

In the larger precincts, that cost was $8 per voter. In the states that have all-mail ballots, it's $2 or $3, Brewer said.

“If I had total control, I would go to an all-mail ballot because it would be much more efficient, both administratively and financially,” Brewer said, “but I don't see that happening.”

Brewer's vision is to institute voting centers at local school districts, where all the residents of that district would vote.

The schools would have in-service or Act 80 days for both the primary elections and general elections to ensure the safety of students and provide adequate parking for voters, Brewer said.

School buildings are already ADA compliant, which would negate the current practice of transporting and setting up ramps, signs, mats and doorbells at certain small polling places.

In the Butler and Seneca Valley school districts, where residents are more far flung than Mars or South Butler, Brewer would use various school buildings based on population.

“We'd still be able to bring people to one local facility within their area,” Brewer said of voting centers.

She said voting centers would also reduce the number of poll workers required for elections.

Brewer currently has a shortage of workers, all of whom must be trained to perform any task on an election day.

She supports training poll workers on specific tasks at voting centers, as a worker under the current requirements may only be required to perform certain tasks every five years and might not recall the training.

Regarding reforms on absentee ballots, Brewer said anyone who is issued an absentee ballot should be prohibited from voting at the precinct.

That practice would protect voting integrity and greatly decrease administrative headaches associated with absentee ballots, Brewer said.

She hopes the elections reform package championed by Folmer and his colleagues will be successful in Harrisburg.

“It's not a partisan issue, and it benefits the voters, taxpayers and county,” Brewer said.