Pennsylvania counties push for changes to mail ballot law

HARRISBURG » Pennsylvania’s counties pressed lawmakers and Gov. Tom Wolf to allow them to process mail- in ballots before Election Day in the battleground state as they consider the prospect of waiting until polls open to dig intowhat could be3million or more envelopes.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia on Tuesday opened seven satellite election offices — a sort- of one- stop shop for people to register and vote bymail- in ballot— as Pennsylvania’s most populous counties look for ways to manage the massive mailin vote.

Allowing as many as 21 days to process mail- in ballots before Election Day has been the counties’ top election priority for months.

But it remained stuck Tuesday in a wider partisan dispute between the Democratic governor and the Republican- controlled Legislature amid a highstakes presidential election and partisan lawsuits over how mail- in ballots should be collected and counted.

The debate is happening amid President Donald Trump’s persistent attacks on the legitimacy ofmail- in ballots, after his comments Saturday evening in a rally in Pennsylvania that Democrats are “going to try to steal the election.”

Demand is rising for mail- in ballots because of the coronavirus and could surpass 3 million, or 10 times the amount in 2016’ s presidential election. Registered Democrats are applying for mail- in ballots at a rate of nearly 3 to 1 overRepublicans.

County officials say processing mail- in ballots before Election Day will speed up vote counting amid concerns that a presidential election resultwill hang in limbo for days on a drawn- out vote count in Pennsylvania.

In a pointed message on Twitter, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania said “we don’t want Pennsylvania to become a national news story.”

Diane Ellis- Marseglia, chair of Bucks County’s commissioners, estimated that processing ballots before Election Day would allow her county to tabulate them all within 12 to 15 hours after polls close. Otherwise, it could take three days with election workers working around the clock, she said.

“If they would just do that, that’s it, that’s all we really need,” Ellis- Marseglia, a Democrat, said.

In Delaware County,, Councilwoman Christine Reuther said voters in the Democratic- leaning county are increasingly concerned over rhetoric that Trump will have a large election night lead, based on the inperson vote, and then cry foul when the lead shrinks or disappears as mail- in ballots, primarily from Democrats, are counted in the ensuing hours and days.

The Legislature could head that off by allowing ballots to be processed before Election Day, she said.

That could mean that 75% of mailed- in ballots would be counted by 11 p. m. election night, she said.

“It shouldn’t be people saying, ‘ Well, these results coming in after Election Day shouldn’t count because the election’s rigged,’ and that’s been the rhetoric and the drumbeat,” Reuther said.

A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign, Thea McDonald, said if votes are to be processed before Election Day, it must “be a transparent process with a poll watcher in the room to ensure all rules are followed.”

In Philadelphia, the city opened seven of 17 satellite election offices it plans, where people can register to vote, apply for amail- in ballot, fill it out and submit it.

Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court, in a Sept. 17 decision, deemed such offices to be legal under current law, delivering a loss to Republicans and Trump’s campaign, who had opposed them.