Polls in Pa. are open but don't expect results today
Nov. 8—Polls opened across Pennsylvania this morning and formal in-person voting is underway for the commonwealth's next governor, U.S. senator and state legislators.
While anticipation is high to learn who will be elected, the public must temper its collective expectation: Results of the statewide races aren't expected tonight.
That's because of expanded mail-in voting and the current system in place to administer the polling-place alternative.
"We anticipate this means that once again, Pennsylvania won't have unofficial results on election night. We must again ask for patience. An accurate count of all eligible votes is paramount and cannot be rushed," Leigh Chapman, acting secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of State, said in October — information she's repeated many times.
Statewide results can be found at vote.pa.gov while county-specific returns can be found on county websites. Links to both, plus more voter information, can be found here. Election Day complaints and more can be reported here or by calling 1-877-868-3772.
There were 1,439,446 mail-in and absentee ballots provided to registered voters on request across the commonwealth: 986,463 to Democrats, 303,396 to Republicans, 149,587 to independents and non-party affiliates.
However, none could be processed and counted until polls opened today at 7 a.m. Despite the desires of county election officials from both major parties, state law has not been changed to allow election workers to "pre-canvass" the million-plus ballots that have been returned over the past several weeks.
Pre-canvassing allows election workers to count the votes but not record or publish the returns before polls close. While the term is unique to Pennsylvania, the pre-election processing of mail returns is not.
Thirty-eight states allow some similar form of processing, or pre-canvassing, of mail-in votes before Election Day including Florida and Texas. In fact, the Sunshine State is among 10 that allows votes to be processed and counted before polls open, though such preliminary results are forbidden by law from being disclosed.
As of Tuesday morning, 1,156,238 mail-in votes had been returned in Pennsylvania: 801,174 from Democrats, 246,240 from Republicans, 108,824 from others.
Anyone holding on to one of the 283,208 remaining mail-in ballots has until 8 p.m. today to hand deliver them to their county election officials, be it at an office, drop box or satellite location. Don't put them in the mail today.
The volume of mail-ballot returns or the lack of adequate staffing to administer in-person voting and mail-in voting in one day prevents some counties from completing the traditional unofficial count on Election Day.
Chapman, Pennsylvania's top election official, has said it could take several days to complete the first statewide count.
Since Democrats account for nearly 70% of the mail-in vote as it stood early Tuesday, and Republicans have shown to favor voting in person, the expectation in close races is that Republican candidates are more likely to lead when some results are released tonight.
However, as mail ballots are processed today, tomorrow and perhaps beyond, the races may tighten and the leads could change — depending on the race. This will likely also be the case for the highly contested legislative elections that are regional affairs.
It took four days to call the presidential race in fall 2020 because of the huge volume of mail-in ballots. That volume won't be matched in this election cycle but the barriers to a more efficient count, be it legal or staff-related, remain in place.
