{"id":296528,"date":"2026-09-30T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/296528\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T00:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T00:24:08","slug":"pennsylvania-state-house-passes-bipartisan-open-primaries-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/296528\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania State House passes bipartisan open primaries bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) &#8211; The Pennsylvania State House <a data-ylk=\"slk:passed a bill;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.palegis.us\/legislation\/bills\/2025\/hb280\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">passed a bill<\/a> that would allow Independents to vote in the state&#8217;s primaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:House Bill 280;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.palegis.us\/house\/co-sponsorship\/memo?memoID=43623\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">House Bill 280<\/a>, proposed by State Rep. Jared Solomon (D-Philadelphia), would allow an &#8220;unenrolled elector,&#8221; also known as an unaffiliated voter, to participate in primary elections by requesting either a Republican or Democratic Party ballot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">[sailthru_widget name=&#8221;Sailthru Widget Block&#8221; sailthru_list=&#8221;Daily Weather Forecast&#8221; title=&#8221;Morning Weather Forecast&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pennsylvania&#8217;s primary election system currently limits Republicans to vote for Republicans and Democrats to vote for Democrats, with no options for Independents or third-party voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bill passed the House in bipartisan fashion, with 16 Republicans joining all but four House Democrats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bill now goes to the State Senate for consideration with nine days left in the legislative session.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) said Tuesday afternoon that Senate Republicans will seek to tie voter ID to an open primaries bill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Current law requires a first-time voter to demonstrate they are who they say they are, and we see no reason that shouldn&#8217;t be enshrined as something consistently done when an individual exercises their right to vote,&#8221; said Pittman. &#8220;House Democrats&#8217; continual unwillingness to include advancement of commonsense Voter ID is an impediment to the discussion of additional voting reforms.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The legislation would &#8220;take effect immediately&#8221; if passed by the Senate and signed by the governor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This is a developing story. Stay with abc27 News as more information becomes available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc27.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) &#8211; The Pennsylvania State House passed a bill that would allow Independents to vote in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[529,5927,9709,5928,28,30,29,41492,70771,5019,8501],"class_list":["post-296528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bill","tag-house-democrats","tag-jared-solomon","tag-joe-pittman","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-state-house","tag-primaries","tag-republicans","tag-senate-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}