State Sen. Gene Yaw supports pending voter identification legislation to ensure more fairness and accuracy at the polls.

Yaw met with editorial board members of the Sun-Gazette Tuesday to go over several topics he’s undertaking in Harrisburg.

“As elected officials, we have an obligation to help,” he said, adding the identification of voters was necessary to answer many problems that arise after elections.

He also said the widespread use of identification is needed for everything from entering special events to buying items at stores or staying at hotels.

A photo identification was needed to get into Gov. Josh Shaprio’s inauguration ceremony, he said.

He also addressed the counter arguments.

“I get emails that say, ‘you are going to disenfranchise thousands of people,” he said. “Tell me who is disenfranchised?” Yaw asked. “Who are they? I don’t know anybody that does not have an ID.”

“My question is if you are a citizen, and, especially, if you are an elected official, if you know somebody that does not have some kind of ID, don’t you have an obligation to help them?” Yaw said. “Or, if you don’t want to help them, then tell us who they are. Send them to our office.”

Yaw said the photo ID distribution could be done by a traveling van that assists individuals leading up to the elections.

“To take pictures or whatever,” he said.

Due to the disorganization of the House of Representatives, the timeline has been extended for the bill to be debated on, possibly amended and voted on.

“The House has not been organized,” Yaw said. “We’ve already missed the primary date for this year…I think the best we can hope for is that once the House gets organized, they pass the bill or at least one of the bills that is in this package — verbatim,” he said.

If it happens, the earliest it might be is in the 2024 primary election, he said.

Such a voter identification bill would have ramifications, he said.

“I don’t pretend to know them all,” he said, but noted how the House may decide to amend the Senate bill.

“What if they split the Senate bill into different parts, change the dates, all of those are legal issues,” he said.

Another election issue is mail-in ballots.

“Unfortunately, the media has played that up,” he said, referring to reported inaccuracies and official counts.

“There is a small minority of people that have perpetuated this thing,” he said.

Historically speaking, however, he added, no election goes entirely without glitches.

Thinking back when he served as Lycoming County solicitor, he said he could recall when voters used to go into a booth and pull the curtain and how left-handed individuals would have a physical challenge to add a write-in candidate.

There were past issues with machines that required repair during the election day cycle.

“There was always a big paper roll,” Yaw said.

Once, a voting machine was jammed.

“We’d send somebody out with keys to the machine,” he said. “They’d open it up, rearrange the paper or do whatever inside, lock it back up and go on. I don’t know how those votes were recorded.”

In the past, voters complained about gaining full accessibility into the polling booths, such as where door thresholds would not permit those in wheelchairs to easily get across.

“There was something like that in every election,” he said. “We dealt with it and we went on. Now, we are not moving on.”

“We are continuing to pick at the same thing and I think that is not the way to go,” he said.

Nevertheless, Yaw said he is hopeful logic will prevail.

“If it goes as planned…we could get the (Voter ID) package together for the primary next year.”