When the law that included no excuses voting by mail was overwhelmingly passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf in 2019, it was hailed as a major step forward in making the election process easier and more convenient to access.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Just as most Pennsylvanians, I always voted in person until 2020. Of course, before enactment of this sweeping legislation, only those who had legitimate excuses could vote by absentee ballot, and since I was never away from home on Election Day or had any infirmities, I didn’t worry about casting an absentee ballot.

With the concerns about the virus front and center in 2020, especially because of my age, I decided to vote by mail, even though I had some reservations about whether my vote would be counted.

My main concern was not in the security of the system but whether the U.S. Postal Service would be able to deliver my completed ballot the 10 miles from my home to the county election bureau in time to be counted, even though I mailed it about 14 days before Election Day last November. I was relieved when I received an email saying that my ballot had arrived and that all was well.

I voted by mail again during Pennsylvania’s primary elections this past May. Even though I am registered nonpartisan and would normally be unable to vote in our state’s closed primaries, I, along with other non-party-affiliated and third-party voters, could cast ballots on the four ballot questions only.

Finding the mail-in process to be a breeze, I intend to continue to vote this way for my remaining elections. I love it. The only thing I will miss is not being able to buy shoofly pies at my polling place, but my local supermarket has delicious alternatives, so this will do nicely.

As many of you have probably heard, the Pennsylvania Republican majority in the General Assembly conducted a series of statewide hearings that has led to proposed legislation to make a number of changes to existing voting laws.

Although none eliminates no-excuses voting, some of the provisions will make the process more complicated. One of the main concerns is that people who are neither registered to vote nor entitled to cast a ballot will, creating a fraudulent situation.

In the past, incidences of this sort of thing happening have been infrequent, and even when they did occur, they were so few in number that it did not change the outcome of any election, so some of these proposed changes are like shooting a flea with an elephant gun.

I was curious to see the outcome of the first major poll among Pennsylvania voters as to how they feel about these proposed GOP changes to the voting laws.

Conducted by Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Opinion Research, the poll of 444 likely and registered voters - 205 Democrats, 177 Republicans and 62 independents - had a margin of error of plus or minus 6.4%.

The results showed 59% believe revisions are needed to the state’s voting laws. Predictably, Republicans overwhelmingly are in favor of changes with 75% of those polled believing that the laws need to be strengthened to prevent fraud.

This might seem striking to some since the 2020 presidential election was said to be the most secure in our history, even though ex-President Donald Trump never conceded that he lost to President Joe Biden, and he and Republican supporters of the former president continue to push the false narrative that the election was stolen, which is why they are engaged in attempts to change voting laws in Republican-led states across the country.

During an interview Friday, state Sen. David Argall, R-Schuylkill and chair of the Senate State Government Committee, said he supports an Arizona-style audit of last year’s 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania, despite the fact that there already have been two audits which found that the results were accurate. This was after election officials from both parties, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the governor and repeated unsuccessful court challenges by Republicans had concluded that there was no widespread fraud which would overturn Biden’s 80,555-vote margin over Trump, giving the new president the state’s 20 electoral votes.

When asked directly and repeatedly whether he believed there was fraud in the state’s results, Argall sidestepped the question by saying, “Let’s just see what the audit says.” Argall also said that he has received many comments from constituents in his heavily Republican district who he said believe there were issues with the election results. “I’m an agent of public opinion,” Argall said.

The F&M poll also showed that 52% of independents also believe changes are needed in the state’s voting laws, as well as 46% of Democrats.

The major agreements among those polled as to what should be changed are signature verification for mail-in ballots (81%) and photo ID requirements (74%).

The problem I have with including a photo ID with my mail-in ballot is that I am no longer assured that my vote choices are secret. My official signature is on the envelope of the mail-in ballot, but this envelope is set aside during the vote count.

One thing to remember about polls: They are a snapshot of a specific time, in this case June 7-13 when the poll was conducted. They are not a forecast of things to come. All polls are transient. Voters change their minds, sometimes hours later, and events can influence voters’ decisions, even whether they will cast ballots.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.