Hopefully, you’ll be at the polls when they open at 7 a.m. Or you’ll be dropping off your mail-in ballot. Or, you’ll be sitting in your house knowing that your franchise was fully exercised.
As I said in my column two weeks ago, Tuesday is Election Day.
It’s too late to apply for a mail-in ballot, and if you have one and haven’t sent it in, you have to drop it off in one of the city’s drop boxes. If you don’t want to drop it off, you can bring it to your polling place when the polls open at 7a.m.
But no matter how you decide to do it, getting to the polls is essential because among the things that could be decided in this election is how easy, or how difficult, it will be for you to vote in the 2026 Midterm Elections.
Three seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court are up for grabs as Christine Donahue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht vie for retention — and the new 10-year-term that goes with it — to the Commonwealth’s highest court.
Now, the reason why your right to vote and how you choose to exercise it figures in to this year’s elections is because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court — which leans Democratic — has decided, among other things, that Act 777, the law that gave the right to mail-in voting to everyone during the COVID lockdowns.
The court has also decided in favor of letting voters know when they’ve made a mistake on their ballot and using drop boxes to put in ballots that wouldn’t make it to election officials in time to be counted if sent by mail.
Thus, this judicial retention race has attracted a lot of attention — and campaign cash from outside the state.
While the three justices being voted on came in as Democrats, they’ll be non-partisan on the ballot. Voters will have the option of clicking “yes” or “no” regarding retention.
Although the Supreme Court retention race is the headline when it comes to judicial races, it’s not the only race on the ballot in that department.
There is also a large chunk of the city’s judiciary that’s up for election or retention. Eleven Common Pleas Court seats are up for grabs, as are seats on the Commonwealth, Municipal and Superior Courts.
Fourteen Common Pleas Court judges are up for retention, as are five Municipal Court seats, one Superior Court seat and one Commonwealth Court seat.
So, as you can see, there are a lot of people vying for positions that could determine your fate should you appeal in their courtrooms.
But they’re not the only races on the ballot for tomorrow.
Christy Brady is running for her second full term as City Controller against Republican Ari Patrinos. Brady has held the office since being appointed to the post in 2022 by former Mayor Jim Kenney and has focused on such things as the function of the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections and the city’s contracting practices.
Patrinos is a Northeast Philadelphia native who was a stockbroker before coming back to Philadelphia to teach math and history in the School District of Philadelphia. He’s been a contributor to the conservative online magazine The Federalist and the Chestnut Hill Local and has taken and completed financial and actuarial examinations.
(I had a college roommate who was studying actuarial science. I took a look at one of her homework assignments and it reconfirmed my decision to become a writer.)
But the race that people will be paying as much attention to as they will the Supreme Court retention contest is the District Attorney tete a tete between incumbent Larry Krasner and retired judge Pat Dugan.
Now, if this race sounds familiar, it’s a rematch of the 2025 May Primary. Although Dugan had said to reporters that he wouldn’t run for the office as a Republican, a successful Philadelphia GOP write-in campaign changed his mind.
Unfortunately, voters won’t have much beyond the debates Krasner and Dugan had during the primary and the very sporadic coverage of the race to go on when it comes to this race.
Campaigning has been close to non-existent. Although Krasner has spent time with community groups telling them how to exercise their rights should Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents come to the door, he hasn’t acknowledged Dugan’s presence.
Dugan hasn’t spent much time on the campaign trail either. But he has enjoyed the support of anti-Krasner forces who blame the District Attorney for the murder of Kada Scott of Mt. Airy.
Scott was found dead behind the former Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School in East Germantown. The man accused of her murder, Keon King of Dover, Delaware, had been out on bail on a host of charges connected to the abuse of a former girlfriend before connecting with Scott. City Council passed a resolution two weeks ago that called for hearings to find out (a) why charges against King had been dropped, (b) why the judge let King out on such a low bail and (c) why King wasn’t arrested on his more serious charges until he turned himself in.
Should he win, Krasner, a former defense attorney, would be serving his third term as District Attorney.
Of the 1,062,894 registered voters in Philadelphia, only 16.61% turned out to vote for the May 2025 primary.
Improving on that shouldn’t be hard.
The polls open at 7am and will remain open until 8pm. If you’re already in line and it’s after 8pm., stay in line. You’ll be allowed to vote.
If you need help finding your polling place, and you live in Philadelphia County, call the Philadelphia Voter Registration Office at 215-686-1590.
And if anyone tries to impede your right to vote, or if something hinky is going on at your polling place, dial 866-OUR-VOTE and speak to a voter protection volunteer.
Our reporters sit through hours of city council meetings, dig through piles of documents, and ask tough questions other media overlook. Because we’re committed to addressing Philadelphia’s poverty crisis — and challenging those who sustain it. If you think this work is important too, please support our journalism.
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