Pennsylvania voters will go to the polls Nov. 7. When they will vote again remains a mystery.

That should not be the case.

Lawmakers in Harrisburg are batting back and forth ideas for moving the primary, which is currently scheduled for April 23. Some want to move it up to avoid conflict with Passover. Some want to move it up to make the state more relevant to the nomination process.

While these are valid concerns, lawmakers have had years to consider these concerns.

What they don’t seem to be considering is the logistics of such a change.

Local election officials have to coordinate polling locations. A year or more in advance, church halls and school gyms are booked to host elections. Notices of polling locations go out to voters, so they know where to go on Election Day. Months in advance, poll workers are sought and they put in time off requests to their employers to work the polls. Supplies are ordered. Ballots are printed. Coffee is brewed.

Coordination is key to getting an election right. Local officials are lining up all of these ducks right now for what they think is going to be an April 23 election. If the date is moved up, gears come to a grinding halt, and the machine needs to be recalibrated to a new date.

Polling places may no longer be available, so new notices of polling locations will have to go out. Poll workers need to rearrange their schedules. Supply orders need to go out now instead of next month.

These are all things considered at the local level. Lawmakers in Harrisburg may know this at some level, but it sure doesn’t appear that way to the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

The commissioners believe it’s too late to move the primary election date. They understand the mountain of tiny tasks of coordinating an election.

Association member and Butler County Commissioner Kevin Boozel this week said “stress in an already difficult election is more stress.”

If the election remains as scheduled, the stress is more manageable and the odds of mistakes being made is minimized.

Do we need to maim the ducks in the machine?

– RJ