To encourage a vote count that's as expedient as possible in an atmosphere where politicians could use swings in the results to their own advantage, Pennsylvania officials continued to encourage counties on Friday to start processing and scanning the hundreds of thousands of mail-in and absentee ballots on Election Day -- and not the day after.
Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said she knows of at least seven counties that have indicated they may not start canvassing mail-in ballots until the day after the election, citing resources, space and time, among other reasons.
Those counties will hear from the state, Ms. Boockvar said, on why it matters to pre-canvass the ballots as soon as the law allows at 7 a.m. Nov. 3.
"I am urging all the counties to start on Election Day," Ms. Boockvar said Friday in a briefing with reporters. Gov. Tom Wolf, too, said he’s “got to believe it would be better and faster and more efficient for counties to start as soon as they can” in pre-canvassing.
This comes as experts and officials continue to warn that the time it could take for the overwhelming majority of ballots to be counted will likely exceed what voters are accustomed to in normal years.
Counties are tasked this election with holding in-person voting while also facing the prospect of counting at least 2.2 million mail-in and absentee ballots -- a number that could climb by as many as 1 million ballots in the coming days when more voters return theirs.
Pennsylvania officials have said it could be a matter of days before enough ballots are counted to determine accurate winners, but has aimed to cut down on that time wherever they can -- including by pressuring counties to start the pre-canvassing process the morning of Election Day.
Counties that have indicated they might wait until the next day include Beaver, Mercer and Greene in Western Pennsylvania, according to a running tally kept by local political analyst Ben Forstate.
Ms. Boockvar, noting that some counties have claimed they don't have the resources to start pre-canvassing on Election Day, said some have not sought any federal grants that were made available -- money that is "literally sitting in accounts by the Department of State waiting to be distributed to them,” she said. None of the counties, she added, has applied for a popular grant doled out by a private foundation, either.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said his office, too, is urging counties to start the count of mail-in ballots Tuesday.
"The only accurate count is the one where every single eligible vote is included," Mr. Shapiro said Friday. "That may take a little bit of time. And whether you voted in person on election day or you voted by mail a few days ago, your vote counts equally."
But even though the votes count equally by definition, the status of counts at particular times after polls close could be spun by politicians who are seeking to take advantage of uncertainty and declare victory in their races.
Democrats have warned, in particular, that Republicans -- particularly President Donald Trump -- could declare themselves the winners in their races based on results that include a lion's share of in-person votes, which will likely stray Republican, while mail-in ballots will take longer to count.
Claire Kovach, a senior research analyst at Keystone Research, pointed to evidence that backs up this concern: that of the mail-in ballots already returned, Democrats have cast three times more than Republicans. As a result, tallies of in-person votes might show a Republican in the lead, but that lead could erode as mail-in ballots are slowly processed.
"Even if the election results are slow or a blue shift occurs, it doesn't mean the election is rigged or that vote fraud is driving results," Ms. Kovach said.
If the count takes longer than expected, it doesn't mean it should be stopped, Ms. Kovach added. And it's likely that it will.
About 1.46 million mail-in and absentee votes were cast in the June primary, Ms. Kovach said, and ahead of this election, there have already been a half a million more cast. In the primary, it took six days for all the races to be called and almost three weeks for races to be certified, she added.
Though many counties have increased staffing and purchased high-speed machinery to open envelopes, Ms. Kovach said it's still a time-consuming process.
"The high-speed ballot scanners they use are really sensitive, so if a ballot is crinkled...the machine returns it to be hand-processed, which takes even longer," Ms. Kovach said.
Members of the National Council on Election Integrity, which says it is a bipartisan group of former elected officials, former Cabinet secretaries and retired military officials, sent a memo to members of the media this week advising them to "rise to the moment" and educate Americans on why they should be patient when waiting for results.
The media should prepare the public for "Election Week" and not "Election Night," they wrote.
Pennsylvania, too, is changing the way it reports and displays results after polls close. For this election, the public will be able to view separate data for in-person voting and mail-in ballot counting on the website www.electionreturns.pa.gov.
First Published: October 31, 2020, 4:40 a.m.
