Pennsylvanians urged to drop off mail-in ballots in person
Democrats in the state Legislature had pressed for legislation allowing counties to process mail-in ballots before Election Day, but Republicans blocked it.
That could leave the results of many contests, including Pennsylvania’s presidential election result, in doubt for days after polls close.
The drawn-out counting is shadowed by President Donald Trump’s impossible demand this week that all votes be counted on election night and a winner declared in his contest with former Vice President Joe Biden.
Counties can start opening what could be more than 3 million mail-in ballot envelopes starting Tuesday at 7 a.m., when Election Day polls open, but they cannot start tabulating them until polls close at 8 p.m. that night.
Philadelphia, the state’s most populous city, and Pennsylvania’s most heavily populated counties plan to begin tabulating mail-in ballots on election night with the in-person results from polling places.
Some less-populated counties do not plan to start processing or tabulating mail-in ballots until Wednesday.
That includes Cumberland County, in suburban Harrisburg, and northeastern Pennsylvania’s Monroe County.
Officials in both counties said they need to be able to concentrate on managing the in-person vote on Election Day.
Cumberland County said it will not begin processing or tabulating some 60,000 mail-in and absentee ballots until Wednesday.
Monroe County will do some processing of about 38,000 mail-in and absentee ballots on Tuesday, but tabulating will not begin until Wednesday, said Sharon Laverdure, the county commission chair.
In southwestern Pennsylvania’s Greene County, officials there will not begin digging into roughly 4,600 mail-in and absentee ballots until Wednesday, said Commissioner Chair Mike Belding.
They don’t have the staff or the room to tabulate the in-person vote and mail-in ballots at the same time, Belding said.
“Our perspective is to do everything we do with 100% accuracy, and we wouldn’t be able to to that if we were going to do two activities of that scope at the same time,” Belding said.