Under the leadership of its commissioners and Director of Voter Services Forrest Lehman, Lycoming County is taking a step in the right direction.

We can only hope the state Legislature soon follows suit.

The commissioners agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice at a recent meeting. Under the agreement the county will address the inaccessibility at 25 of its 81 polling places immediately and will assess and correct deficiencies at other polling places, the Sun-Gazette reported in Friday’s edition.

“When we make things accessible, we give people the opportunity to participate in what we all do,” Commissioner Rick Mirabito noted.

And we agree it’s important to promote participation in our election process. We can improve faith in our elections by improving accessibility and by improving trust that the process is fair and free from manipulation.

Which is why one of the most important next steps is for our state Legislature to pass a voter ID measure — a thorough piece of legislation that addresses how to make the appropriate forms of ID readily available and affordable and addresses how to equitably enforce the law in all communities and precincts.

As we’ve editorialized before, one practical, concrete step to improve faith in elections is requiring voters to show ID, helping voters without IDs to obtain them and fairly enforcing the requirement. Another is compliance with accessibility standards for voters with disabilities.

We appreciate that our county commissioners and county leaders recognize their part. We appreciate that the state lawmakers from our region recognize their part as well, and we hope the rest of our state Legislature will soon understand the importance of voter ID.