With the never-before-seen number of mail-in ballots to be counted in Pennsylvania, state Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar urged patience with the tally.
During an online meeting with reporters Tuesday, Boockvar reiterated the results won’t be determined for days.
“Just a reminder, I think we all have heard me say this a lot of times, but races are never finished, vote counting is never finished, ever finished on election day,” Boockvar said.
On top of the millions of votes to be cast in person at polling places throughout the state, millions of people have already mailed in ballots. And more will be coming over the next three days under a state Supreme Court ruling that could further drag out the count if those votes are challenged.
”While we expect the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania ballots to be counted within a few days, our first priority and our counties’ first priority is to accurately and securely count every legal ballot cast and then to count them as quickly as humanly possible,” Boockvar said.
Except for a few late openings and system malfunctions, in-person voting got off to a busy start. State Deputy Secretary for Elections Jonathan Marks mentioned Luzerne County as a place where there was a problem.
“We did hear, you mention Luzerne County, we did hear of some voting system issues in one precinct in Luzerne County,” Marks said. “But the majority of our issues so far today seem to be polling places that didn’t open late or polling places that got off to a slow start because of some technical issues or some confusion from the poll workers.”
County Manager C. David Pedri made note of it too in an email he sent out in an Election Day update.
“The county has 129 polling places open and there were a few reported issues this morning. Most of these issues were technical in nature and were resolved once the problem was diagnosed. All polling places are open at this time,” Pedri said.
At the county Bureau of Elections workers had begun pre-canvassing the mail-in ballots. Voters were given the option of mailing in their ballots rather than going to the polls during the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. They also didn’t have to give a reason to vote by mail, a requirement done away with by election law changes enacted last year.
Approximately 52,000 have been received and that number was expected to grow to nearly 60,000 by the close of polls at 8 p.m., Pedri said. The workers can process approximately 2,000 an hour to get them ready to be counted at 8 p.m.
The county’s mail-ins contributed to the unprecedented number seen across the state, Boockvar noted.
The state approved 3,098,947 mail-in applications and confirmed 3,082,832 for mailing. As of Tuesday, 2,506,555 or approximately 81 % were returned, according to data provided by the state.
The breakdown by party of the 2,506,555 votes returned was:
• 1,641,826 Democrat.
• 586,336 Republican.
• 278,393 Independent and others.
“Just for historic context, so we’re going to end up somewhere in the realm of 2.6 million, which is literally 10 times as many ballots as were cast by mail in 2016,” Boockvar said.
In 2016, there were 266,208 civilian absentee ballots cast and 248,561 in 2013, Boockvar said.
How many additional votes will be returned by Friday as a result of the extension granted by the state Supreme Court due to mail delays as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is undetermined at this time, Boockvar said.
The court ruling allowed for counting votes mailed by Election Day and received by 5 p.m. on Friday. It faced an initial challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court that might be revisited. Citing a lack of time the nation’s highest court declined to put the case on a fast track to be decided before the election.
“That does not mean, however, that the state court decision must escape our review,” Justice Samuel Alito said in an opinion on Oct. 28.
The U.S. Supreme Court could agree to hear the case and decide it under a shortened schedule, Alito said.
In anticipation of a challenge Boockvar issued guidance to counties to segregate the ballots received during the three-day extension. She also offered a way out for the state and voters.
“One of the reasons why we’ve been urging all voters to get their ballots in by today is to avoid any significant numbers that come in after today,” Boockvar said. “Until we know what those numbers are it’s hard to know exactly what the impact would be.”