On Saturday, election officials cut the growing line of people waiting to vote at the Board of Elections satellite office short two hours before the office closed, and local news and police were called and many people stayed in line.
The vote.pa website allegedly had incorrect hours posted for that office. Several voters claimed the website listed it as being open from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. instead of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., so many voters who arrived at noon thinking they were early were turned away. Vote.pa is run by Commonwealth Communications, which is led by long-time Democratic strategist J.J. Abbott. They have since corrected the incorrect information about the Doylestown election office and are checking the accuracy of all their information on the site. Abbott said no one involved with his organization was trying to mislead anyone.
County officials said they weren’t trying to keep anyone from voting, with county spokesperson James O’Malley saying, “The Board of Elections office is not a polling place. On-demand in-person mail-in ballots are not early voting. This service is offered as a courtesy to voters because we have the equipment to do so. We are happy to accommodate as many voters as we can, but the fact remains that this is not a polling place, and our staff needs to be allowed time to fulfill their other duties in furtherance of carrying out the election.”
Pennsylvania does not have early voting like Florida or Virginia, and election officials cannot open mail-in ballots before Election Day. Election officials across the commonwealth have requested amendments to the election law to allow officials to open and process mail-in ballots before Election Day, and state legislators have proposed amendments to the law, but none have passed.
Some more populous counties set up satellite election offices where voters can register, apply for mail-in ballots, drop off mail-in ballots, and ask other election-related questions. Some counties offer on-demand printing of ballots.
Bucks County opened its satellite election offices and began offering on-demand printing of mail-in ballots on October 15th. On their website, they posted their office hours and a highlighted notice saying “Due to high demand, wait times for in-person mail-in ballots may be longer than expected. To ensure all applications are processed by the end of the day, the office may need to stop accepting new applicants before the posted closing time. We appreciate your patience and understanding.” According to O’Malley, there are long lines at the Bucks County election office every day and the long wait times are due to how long it takes to prepare the ballots.
Here’s how it works: each voter who goes to an election office gets a mail-in ballot application, fills it out, and hands it to an election official. The official checks the application against county and state voter rolls to confirm that the person is eligible to vote by mail and hasn’t already received a ballot. Then, they print out the ballot for that voter’s precinct, along with an envelope with a barcode unique to that voter. According to O’Malley, the process takes an election official about 12 minutes for each application. Voters can then take their ballots home or fill them at the office and hand them back to an election official before they leave.
In 2019, the state Legislature passed Act 77, allowing Pennsylvanians to vote by mail without an excuse, and establishing rules for voting by mail. Here are the general rules regarding Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law:
- Voters who want to cast mail ballots must apply for their ballots by 5 p.m. on the Tuesday before an election day. This year, that’s October 29.
- Each ballot must be sealed in a secrecy envelope, which must be sealed inside another envelope that the voter must sign and date. Ballots that don’t meet these requirements will not be counted. If election officials find that a ballot hasn’t been signed, dated, or sealed in the envelopes appropriately, they can contact the voter and have them correct it, but the voter must do so on Election Day via a provisional ballot.
- Voters may put their ballots in the mail or a secure drop box, or hand-deliver them to the elections office.
- All mail-in ballots must arrive at the local elections office by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
- County elections officials aren’t allowed to open any mailed ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day.
- As mail-in ballots come in, whether in person or through the mail, election officials sort them by precinct so they can be counted with other ballots from the same precinct and set them aside until election day.
Bucks County has 489,050 registered voters according to the Department of State. As of Friday, 134,638 mail-in ballots have been issued, and 92,849 have been returned. Some Bucks County voters have said they request ballots on-demand at satellite offices because they don’t trust the mail-in voting process. Upper Southampton resident Harry Siegel said he wanted a mail-in ballot on-demand because “In the past, I’ve seen my vote go in and it looked like it didn’t do anything. I want to make sure it gets in one way or the other.” Perkasie resident Lisa Wolert, who was in line behind the cut-off point on Saturday, said “I’d rather get my vote in ahead of time, in case they fiddle with it, there’s enough time to fix it.”
Bucks County will stop printing mail-in ballots on-demand on October 29. Bucks County voters should visit the county website for the most accurate and up-to-date information on county election office hours and drop box locations.