Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules that counties cannot reject mail ballots because of mismatched signatures | Angela Couloumbis/The Philadelphia Inquirer

Counties cannot reject mail-in and absentee ballots if a voter’s signature on the outer envelope does not match what’s on file, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Friday, making drawn-out challenges on Election Day less likely.In a 7-0 decision, the high court said there are no provisions in the state’s election code that specifically require counties to match voters' signatures. And, the court noted, in writing the law, the legislature could have explicitly mandated signature matching but did not. “We decline to read a signature comparison requirement into the plain and unambiguous language of the election code,” the justices wrote in their decision.Friday’s ruling stemmed from a request earlier this month from Pennsylvania’s top election official, Kathy Boockvar, to bar county election officials from rejecting mail-in ballots solely on the basis of perceived differences in a voter’s signature. The decision is the latest in a crush of litigation in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 election, as Republicans and Democrats wage pitched battles over gray areas in Pennsylvania’s year-old law that greatly expanded the ability to vote by mail.

Pennsylvania: Talks collapse on a deal to let counties open mail ballots before Election Day | Cynthia Fernandez and Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Negotiations between the Republican-led legislature and Gov. Tom Wolf to let counties begin opening mail ballots in Pennsylvania before Election Day appeared to collapse Wednesday, setting up a potential nightmare scenario that some fear could leave the state counting millions of ballots for days after Nov. 3.The Democratic governor and legislative leaders had been negotiating behind closed doors as recently as Tuesday to change the election code after months of inaction. But the General Assembly adjourned Wednesday and is not scheduled to reconvene until Nov. 10, a week after the election. In adjourning, Republicans turned away pleas from county elections officials across the state, who said allowing them to open ballots before Election Day would reduce the staffing strain and administrative headaches on top of whatever issues they’re dealing with during in-person voting. Without a deal, the days-long process of counting mail ballots can’t begin until 7 a.m. on Election Day, potentially leaving the results unclear for days and opening room for candidates to falsely declare victory. As the day ended, both sides were left pointing fingers.

Pennsylvania: Trump Campaign Draws Rebuke for Surveilling Philadelphia Voters | Danny Hakim and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

The Trump campaign has been videotaping Philadelphia voters while they deposit their ballots in drop boxes, leading Pennsylvania’s attorney general to warn this week that the campaign’s actions fall outside of permitted poll watching practices and could amount to illegal voter intimidation. The campaign made a formal complaint to city officials on Oct. 16, saying a campaign representative had surveilled voters depositing two or three ballots at drop boxes, instead of only their own. The campaign called the conduct “blatant violations of the Pennsylvania election code,” according to a letter from a lawyer representing the Trump campaign that was reviewed by The New York Times. The campaign included photos of three voters who it claimed were dropping off multiple ballots.“This must be stopped,” a local lawyer for the Trump campaign, Linda A. Kerns, wrote in the letter, adding that the actions “undermine the integrity of the voting process. ”Both the Trump and Biden campaigns are focused on Pennsylvania, seen as one of the most important swing states in the election and where polls show Joseph R. Biden Jr. with a seven-point lead. The Trump campaign’s aggressive strategy in Philadelphia suggests its aim is to crack down on people dropping off ballots for family members or anyone else who is not strictly authorized to do so. Ms. Kerns demanded that the names of all voters who had used a drop box in front of Philadelphia’s City Hall on Oct. 14 be turned over to the campaign, and insisted that the city station a staff member around every drop box “at all times.” She also asked for footage from municipal cameras around City Hall.But city officials rejected the assertion that the voters who had been photographed had necessarily done something improper. The city’s lawyers forwarded the campaign’s complaints to the local district attorney, but did not make a formal referral and cast doubt on the assertions. They also said they do not track which voters use which drop box.

Pennsylvania: A year ago, voting machines malfunctioned in Northhampton county. Have the problems been fixed? | Marie Albiges/Spotlight PA

On Election Day a year ago, Matthew Munsey was getting some alarming reports.Voters in Northampton County were casting their ballots for the first time on the county’s new voting machines, and things weren’t going well: The screens were responding erratically to voters' touches, and the official ballots the machines printed out were hard to read.At the end of the night, a Democratic candidate for Court of Common Pleas judge was showing zero recorded votes at some precincts, even though the candidate knew at least three people — his campaign manager and the manager’s parents — had voted for him.“I felt like this was the worst-case scenario that I had dreaded,” said Munsey, the chairperson for the county Democrats.One year later, those same voting machines will face their most consequential test yet: a highly scrutinized presidential election in a Pennsylvania county widely viewed as a national political bellwether for the race overall.In 2020, many elections experts believe as Northampton County goes, so goes the nation.

Pennsylvania: Voter confusion rattles election officials near Monday’s deadline to register | Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Elise Viebeck/The Washington Post

Elections officials in Pennsylvania are being inundated with complaints from first-time and absentee voters having difficulty registering to vote or requesting a mail ballot, fueling anxiety in the critical swing state just as the 5 p.m. Monday deadline approaches to join the voting rolls in time for the November election. College students in at least three counties in Pennsylvania who attempted to register to vote online had their applications rejected and were notified that they must provide documentation in person or by mail to meet the Monday deadline, raising concerns among voting rights advocates that an unknown number of students may not be able to register in time. Meanwhile, other voters are receiving rejection notices for their absentee ballot requests without a clear explanation. County officials said the vast majority of these rejections were due to duplicate requests. The voters had already requested a general election ballot when they were applying to vote by mail for the primary election, so they didn’t need to request one again for the fall.

Pennsylvania: Amid fears of Election Day chaos, one county prepares for anxious days after the vote | Marc Fisher/The Washington Post

In Erie County, Pa., either Joe Biden or President Trump is showing up every week now, and the anxiety level is through the roof.There’s fear of neighbors: On Election Day, self-appointed guardians armed with assault weapons plan to take up positions outside local polling places. There’s fear of outsiders: A Ku Klux Klan group from out of state recently dropped racist fliers on the driveways of some homes with Biden signs on the lawns. And there’s fear of what’s coming Nov. 3: The county sheriff doesn’t have nearly enough deputies to keep eyes on all 149 polls. In one of the most important battlegrounds in one of the most critical swing states in the 2020 presidential race, the Republican county chairman, Verel Salmon, 73, sees “passion like never before in my lifetime, for good and bad, and I started with ‘I Like Ike.’ I don’t think I’ve heard a single optimistic thing this year.”

Pennsylvania: Northampton County – ‘swing county, USA’ – prepares for unprecedented influx of ballots by mail | Mary Louise Kelly, Andrea Hsu, and Fatma Tanis/NPR

The county government cafeteria in Northampton County is a large, airy room with big windows and, for now, lunch tables separated by plexiglass. But a few months from now, on Election Day, this is where the county plans to have a couple of dozen people processing what it expects could be 100,000 mail-in ballots, nearly triple what they handled in the June 2 primary and 15 times what they handled in November 2016. The dramatic rise in mail-in ballots prompted the move of the counting operation to the cafeteria, one of many steps this swing county on the eastern edge of a battleground state is taking to prepare for this unprecedented presidential election. “We’re very supportive of it. It’s just a little more work,” says Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure Jr. “Based on our experience from the primary, we just don’t think it’s physically possible to count the potential 100,000 mail-in ballots that day.” Pennsylvania is among the handful of states that could decide the outcome of the election if it’s close. It voted twice for Barack Obama before pivoting to Donald Trump in 2016. Like many other places across the U.S., officials are anticipating a tremendous increase in the number of people voting by mail, because of changes in laws and coronavirus concerns. While there’s little evidence that mail-in ballots are insecure, they do introduce logistical and other challenges.

Pennsylvania: Federal judge agrees to expedite Trump campaign’s lawsuit over vote-by-mail | Emily Previti/PA Post

A federal judge has agreed to fast track the lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s election campaign against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the commonwealth’s 67 county election boards over vote-by-mail procedures. U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan limited the scope of discovery, however, to the information counties and the Department of State already have assembled for a report on the June 2 primary that’s due to be submitted by August 1 to the state legislature. In his order issued Friday, Ranjan wrote he’s attempting to balance the need to expedite the case given that the election is only 15 weeks away with counties’ “competing obligations to administer the upcoming general election.” The judge scheduled arguments to begin Tuesday, Sept. 22 in Pittsburgh in the order; however, Ranjan will still consider motions to dismiss due next week.

Pennsylvania: 2020 election lawsuits could shape who votes and how ballots are counted | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

With four months until November’s election, a flurry of lawsuits in state and federal courts is seeking to change election rules in Pennsylvania and dozens of other states around the country. They could shape how people cast their ballots and whether those votes are counted. The latest salvo landed this week when the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee filed a federal lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s use of mail ballot drop boxes, its procedures for counting mail ballots, and restrictions on poll watchers. It marked a shift, with the GOP on offense in the state for the first time this election cycle instead of defending against Democratic and progressive groups’ legal challenges. That and other lawsuits are part of a national fight unfolding, particularly across swing states such as Pennsylvania, where small margins could decide who wins the presidency in November. And the fight comes amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has made voting more complicated than normal. “We are seeing a surge in litigation,” said Wendy R. Weiser, head of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “There’s been an increasing number of lawsuits around election administration and voting rights across the country.”

Pennsylvania: Legislature will take up election law changes starting next week | Emily Previti/PA Post

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is suing Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and all 67 county election boards, as we reported earlier this week. The federal lawsuit makes several claims, including that counties violated Pa.’s election code by offering ballot dropoff in secure boxes at libraries, shopping centers and other places that aren’t polling places or county election offices. The election code portions cited in the complaint require voters to mail their ballots or deliver them in person to their county board of election. We wondered: How strong is the case the Trump campaign is making about the legality of ballot dropboxes used during the primary? Now that this issue is the subject of litigation, the Department of State, most county officials and the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania aren’t commenting. At least not yet. So, we asked Chris Deluzio, policy director for the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. “The statute doesn’t say you have to hand it to a person, or drop it at an office, in a box, a lobby, a building, etc.,” says Deluzio, who thinks counties should expand ballot dropoff options for the Nov. 3 general election. “County boards [also] weren’t treating these locations as polling sites, they were treating them as the functional equivalent of personal delivery to the boards of elections.”

Pennsylvania: Coalition says paper ballots key to preventing voter disenfranchisement in Pennsylvania | Christen Smith/The Center Square

A coalition of unlikely allies said Tuesday that paper ballots will protect voters from disenfranchisement in the upcoming November election. The bipartisan group – including Americans for Tax Reform, R Street, Public Citizen and National Election Defense Coalition (NEDC), among others – penned a letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar urging the leaders to spend federal dollars on security upgrades for November that would discourage the use of touch screen voting machines and ensure that the majority print out “voter-verified paper ballots” as a defense against computer malfunctions. “This should not be a partisan fight,” said Ben Ptashnik, president of NEDC. “Insecure voting equipment and lack of preparedness only serves to disenfranchise voters of both parties.” The letter recommends polling places keep enough paper ballots on hand in case the voting system falls victim to a cyberattack or malfunction. It also suggests 24/7 video monitoring and limits on internet connectivity to reduce avenues for hackers to tamper with machines.

Pennsylvania: The Trump campaign is suing Pennsylvania over how to run the 2020 election | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

The Trump reelection campaign sued Pennsylvania state and county elections officials Monday, saying mail ballot drop boxes were unconstitutional in the way they were used in the June 2 primary election and asking a federal court to bar them in November. “Defendants have sacrificed the sanctity of in-person voting at the altar of unmonitored mail-in voting and have exponentially enhanced the threat that fraudulent or otherwise ineligible ballots will be cast and counted in the forthcoming general election,” says the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Instances of voter fraud are rare, and there is virtually no evidence of successful widespread conspiracy to commit fraud via mail ballots. (An alleged effort in Paterson, N.J., last month quickly raised flags, and last week the state attorney general charged four men in the scheme.) The lawsuit says mail ballot drop boxes violate the state and federal constitutions because elections officials are making decisions outside of what the law allows, taking the power to make law away from the legislature. The suit also argues that state and county elections officials set up different rules and policies across the state, creating a patchwork system that violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

Pennsylvania: Trump campaign sues Pennsylvania over mail-in drop-off sites for ballots | Mark Scolforo/Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, the national Republican Party and four Pennsylvania members of Congress sued Monday to force changes to how the state collects and counts mail-in ballots under revamped rules. The federal lawsuit filed in Pittsburgh claims that as voters jumped to make use of the greatly broadened eligibility for mail-in ballots during the June 2 primary, practices and procedures by elections officials ran afoul of state law and the state and federal constitutions. It claims the defendants, which are the 67 county election boards and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, "have inexplicably chosen a path that jeopardizes election security and will lead -- and has already led -- to the disenfranchisement of voters, questions about the accuracy of election results, and ultimately chaos" ahead of the Nov. 3 general election. A spokeswoman for Boockvar, a Democrat, declined comment about the litigation, as did the head of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, whose members administer elections. The head of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party called the lawsuit an effort to suppress votes as a campaign tactic, noting Democrats far outpaced Republicans in getting their voters to apply for mail-in ballots ahead of the primary.

Pennsylvania: 2020 election in Pennsylvania could be a nightmare if state doesn’t act now | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s Nov. 3, 2020. It’s been a long Election Day in Pennsylvania, with new voting machines causing confusion at some polling places, and the closure of others for public health reasons leading to long lines at locations still open. Meanwhile, a huge surge of mail ballots driven partly by coronavirus fears of voting in person means it’s going to take days to count them all and determine who won. But President Donald Trump is already declaring victory. Early, unofficial results make it look like he has won the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania in a landslide. But the election night results are incomplete, with most mail ballots not yet counted. And most Democrats voted by mail, while most Republicans voted in person. Trump isn’t winning. His voters are just being counted first. In the days after the election, as the populous and Democratic Philadelphia region counts its votes, the numbers shift in Joe Biden’s favor, and Trump begins to make false claims of voter fraud and election rigging — echoing conspiracy theories he has promoted for months. One week after the election, votes are still being counted, lawsuits are being prepared, misinformation and partisan attacks are flying. And public trust in the legitimacy of the election is fading, fast. None of this has happened yet. But the experience of this month’s Pennsylvania primary election, coupled with Trump’s increasingly frequent false claims about mail voting, show that it’s not only possible: Without policy changes before November, it is likely, elections officials and voting rights advocates say.

Pennsylvania: Bill to provide mail-in ballots to all Pennsylvania voters introduced to House committee | Mike Pesarchick/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A bill introduced in the state House would provide a mail-in ballot to all registered Pennsylvania voters, offering a possible alternative to long lines at the polls like those seen during the primary election earlier this month. The bill would direct county boards of elections to provide an official mail-in ballot to each qualified voter before any primary or general election. The bill would also repeal an earlier law that requires voters to submit an application for a mail-in ballot to their county’s board of elections. Mail-in ballots were introduced to the state election code last October. Rep. Ed Gainey, D-Lincoln-Lemington, the bill’s primary sponsor, said the bill would soothe concerns about voting in case of a second coronavirus pandemic. “It would reduce the number of people at the polls,” he said. Voters in Mr. Gainey’s district reported waiting for nearly an hour to vote in the June 2 primary, and lines at a Penn Hills polling place grew so long that a judge ordered the polls to remain open an extra hour.

Pennsylvania: A Philadelphia poll watcher got coronavirus, but the city isn’t notifying voters | Emily Previti/PAPost and Katie Meyer/WHYY

A Philadelphia woman who spent the entire June 2 primary as a poll watcher tested positive for COVID-19 10 days later. It’s unclear whether she contracted the virus at the polls. But thanks to a contact tracing program the city says isn’t fully staffed, the vast majority of voters and election workers who were at that polling place haven’t been notified that they may have been exposed. The situation also calls into question whether election and health officials across Pennsylvania are prepared to respond to potential coronavirus exposure at the polls. Andrea Johnson, a Democratic committeewoman, says she’s been vigilant during the pandemic, working from home as a paralegal and wearing a mask on the occasions she’s gone outside. But on June 2, she spent the day at the polls at Andrew Hamilton School in West Philadelphia. Johnson says she disclosed that information to contact tracers working for the city health department. She says she also provided a list of eight people — all voters and poll workers whose names she knew — who she’d come in close contact with in the days leading up to her positive diagnosis. She confirmed that city health officials contacted those eight people, but said she thinks contact tracing efforts ended there.

Pennsylvania: NAACP sues state for changes to election law before November’s election | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pennsylvania NAACP sued the state Thursday demanding an overhaul of the electoral system before November because, it said, the system in place for the June 2 primary was not equally accessible and disenfranchised black and Hispanic voters. Among the changes the civil rights group seeks are stricter limitations on how many polling places a county can close, better notice of changes to locations, in-person early voting, automatic sending of mail ballot applications to all voters, and universal use of hand-marked paper ballots at polling places. To adapt to the coronavirus pandemic in the primary, voting places were sharply limited in many counties and officials were overwhelmed by applications for mail ballots and not able to process them quickly. The changes the group is seeking are necessary, it said, because most epidemiologists expect the pandemic to continue in the fall. On June 2, voters who went to the polls had to risk their lives and health — while those who tried to vote by mail were not always able to do so, the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference said. “As the primary election made clear, many Pennsylvanians have been burdened by the hardships of voting in a pandemic under Pennsylvania’s current scheme. Still, these burdens were not, and in the future will not be, shared equally among Pennsylvania voters. … [W]hile some voters can vote burden-free, African-American and Latino voters are more likely to face an unacceptable and unnecessary risk to their lives and health,” the suit reads.

Pennsylvania: Officials fear election “nightmare” in November with mail-in votes still not tallied after a week | Zak Hudak/CBS

In Northeastern Pennsylvania's Luzerne County, a longtime Democratic stronghold overtaken by Donald Trump in 2016, officials were still counting mail-in ballots two days after the state's June 2 primary election. I have this nightmare of CNN, Fox, CBS and everyone else waiting for these things to come in on election night, and we don't have them," said David Pedri, the county manager. The delay, Pedri said, was simply that the process of counting mail-in ballots is tedious and there's little that can speed it up. "No matter how many people we send in to count ballots, we still have to open an envelope, open another one, check it and smooth it down before we can scan it," he said. Luzerne's experience was replicated across the state. This was the first time all Pennsylvanians were allowed to vote by mail, and a surge of mail-in ballots driven by the coronavirus pandemic left some counties counting ballots days after the election. It's a challenge that local election officials say could continue into the November general election and delay the results of the presidential race if the state doesn't let them start processing ballots earlier. On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's biggest city was still counting ballots it had received by primary day a week earlier. At the beginning of the day, Philadelphia elections officials hadn't counted nearly 150,000 mail-in ballots from the previous week, over three times President Trump's margin of victory over Hillary Clinton in the state in 2016.

Pennsylvania: Bill requiring detailed report on presidential primary heads to governor’s desk | Emily Previti/PA Post

State lawmakers sent a bill to Gov. Tom Wolf Wednesday that would require the Department of State to produce a report on last week’s primary. Sponsored by second-term Rep. Natalie Mihalek (R-Allegheny/Washington), HB2502 mandates that the report include more than two dozen data points on election procedure, such as poll staffing, voter registration and various components of mailed ballot processing. Wolf’s spokeswoman says he plans to sign the measure. It would require DoS to finish the document before Aug. 1, just before GOP legislative leaders expect to start deliberations over making changes to Pennsylvania’s election code ahead of the November general election. But Democrats and stakeholders outside the state legislature—including the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, voting rights advocates and county election directors – say talks on election code fixes need to begin immediately. For months, they’ve warned that widespread mail-in would result in large numbers of ballots arriving at county election offices too late to be counted unless changes are made to the deadlines for applying for mail-in ballots and for returning them.

Pennsylvania: Mail-in voting delays in primary cause Pennsylvania to sound alarm about November | Meg Cunningham and Quinn Scanlan/ABC

With Pennsylvania's presidential and statewide primary June 2 its first election in which any voter could choose to vote by mail, election officials were always prepared for an increase in applications to do so. What they weren’t expecting was the coronavirus pandemic and the 17-fold increase in voters wanting to cast their ballots away from the polling precincts. Now, a week after the primary, votes are still being counted, leading local election officials to sound the alarm, warning America may not know the outcome in the battleground state on election night in November. “We don't want the world on our front step, waiting for us to tell them who won. It's as simple as that,” said Lee Soltysiak, the chief operating officer and chief clerk for Montgomery County, a suburb of Philadelphia. Soltysiak told ABC News Monday that he expected to be done tabulating all the ballots received by the time polls closed at 7 p.m. on June 2 but that didn’t include any of the approximately 5,800 additional ballots received after that point that still need to be counted.

Pennsylvania: Mail ballots for 2020 primary election arrived late by the thousands | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Tens of thousands of Pennsylvania voters were almost disenfranchised last week. Thousands of others actually were. And things could be even worse in November. That’s the clear takeaway from a review of state data on mail ballots, along with interviews with elections officials in several of Pennsylvania’s largest counties: Tens of thousands of ballots arrived in the week after the June 2 primary election, and thousands more voters who applied to vote by mail ended up using provisional ballots at the polls instead. Most of those votes will be counted after orders from Gov. Tom Wolf and judges extending ballot deadlines for specific counties. But that leaves thousands of votes in the rest of the state uncounted. And those orders applied only to this election, leaving in place what many election officials say are problematic deadlines that will continue to ensnare voters in November and future elections. “These deadlines have real consequences,” said Delaware County Council Member Christine Reuther. “And one of them is, people are going to be disenfranchised.”

Pennsylvania: The primary wasn’t a disaster. But it showed there’s work to do before November | Jonathan Tamari and Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

At least it wasn’t Wisconsin. As with every election, the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday had its problems, from long lines at some poll sites to ballot screwups. With huge numbers switching to voting by mail because of a new law expanding that option and coronavirus fears of voting in person, the state faces a long slog of vote-counting that, as of Friday, left many elections unresolved. Thousands of mail ballots didn’t reach voters in time. Their ability to use those ballots was only saved by a last-minute order from Gov. Tom Wolf that extended the mail-in deadline. The issues were worst in big cities — which suffered the greatest effects from the coronavirus and, just as the election arrived, the largest protests against police brutality. In Philadelphia, the surge of mail ballot requests and delays caused by protests and curfews contributed to a slow counting process to ensure that those who voted by mail didn’t also do so in person, potentially delaying results for weeks. But even with those issues, Pennsylvania’s election Tuesday mostly went OK — at least compared with Wisconsin’s April debacle, when lines in Milwaukee stretched for blocks during one of the worst phases of the pandemic.

Pennsylvania: Provisional ballots adding to delay in primary results | Emily Previti/PA Post

Pennsylvania election officials in jurisdictions home to at least 5 million voters don’t expect to have unofficial results for the 2020 primary until the end of this week or, in some cases, next week. And some are warning that it could take even longer to count votes this fall unless steps are taken in the interim. A surge in vote-by-mail is the main reason why primary results will take days to compile. The state’s largest counties — Philadelphia and Allegheny — are among seven counties total that will accept mailed ballots until June 9, thanks to an extension issued by Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday. Officials in most of those jurisdictions – where more than 300,000 ballots hadn’t yet been returned as of Wednesday – say the public shouldn’t expect full unofficial results until at least June 10. Among the commonwealth’s other 60 counties, at least a dozen hadn’t plowed through their stack of absentee and mail-in ballots by the end of the day Wednesday, though most hoped to finish  by Friday. In all 60, ballots were due by 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Pennsylvania: What Pennsylvania’s ‘Dry Run’ Election Could Reveal About November | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Every weekend since Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania issued a statewide stay-at-home order, on April 1, millions of cellphones across the commonwealth have buzzed with text messages from the state Democrats, checking on the status of voters’ mail-in ballots. During that period, state Republicans called two million phones around the state to try to mobilize support, and the Republican National Committee sent applications for mail-in ballots to thousands of targeted voters there. With Pennsylvania holding an important primary election on Tuesday, both parties are also treating it as their biggest chance to stage a statewide “dry run” for organizing and voting before the November presidential vote in one of the nation’s more crucial battleground states. The parties are in new territory this election season — not only because of Covid-19 and the protests over George Floyd’s death, including in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but also because of a new law mandating that anyone who votes by mail in the primary will be sent a ballot for the November election. Party officials and affiliate groups are racing to ramp up and test their voter mobilization efforts, given that the race between President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. this fall is likely to involve obstacles wrought by the coronavirus.

Pennsylvania: Voter confusion abounds in places due to consolidated polling places | Jan Murphy/PennLive

Some voters in some cities around the state are finding their experience of participating in Tuesday’s primary to be confounding, intimidating, and frustrating. Changes made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and having an election in the shadows of civil unrest gripping the nation added a new level of emotion to carrying out one’s civic duty. Many polling places weren’t in the locations where they used to be and many longtime poll workers sat out this election as a result of concerns about exposure to coronavirus. County election officials in midstate counties reported little to no problems with that. However, in other places around the state, voters showed up at their standard polling place only to be met with a sign directing them to another location or simply seeing no notice at all, said Erin Kramer, executive director of One Pennsylvania, an organization monitoring issues arising at polling places across the state as part of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia’s new ExpressVote XL voting machines under scrutiny in Tuesday’s elections | Julia Harte/Reuters

When Pennsylvania holds primary elections on Tuesday, some election security advocates will be watching closely to see if more than 2,000 new voting machines acquired last year by Philadelphia and two other counties perform without glitches. Philadelphia and Northampton counties first used the new “ExpressVote XL” machines in last November’s local elections and will deploy them again in the presidential nominating contests and local races on Tuesday. A third county, Cumberland, will use the machines for the first time. Their first widespread use in 2019 in Pennsylvania was marred by miscounted vote tallies in Northampton, a politically divided county in eastern Pennsylvania. Some ExpressVote XL machines incorrectly recorded votes for several candidates in the November election, prompting the county to count backup paper receipts to identify the correct winners, according to Maudeania Hornik, chair of the Northampton Election Commission. The manufacturer of the ExpressVote XL equipment said in a December press conference that some of Northampton’s 320 machines “were configured improperly at our factory prior to delivery to Northampton County.” The manufacturer told the county as many as 30% of the machines were affected, Hornik said. Problems with at least 366 ExpressVote XL machines also arose in Philadelphia, according to public records exclusively obtained by Reuters. The city last year replaced its old voting equipment with a new fleet of 3,750 ExpressVote XL machines. Reuters could not ascertain how many of those machines were deployed in the November 2019 election there.

Pennsylvania: Governor extends 2020 primary election mail ballot deadlines for Philadelphia, five other counties | Jonathan Lai,/Philadelphia Inquirer

Voters in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and certain other parts of Pennsylvania will have an additional week for elections officials to receive their primary mail ballots if they are sent on Tuesday, officials said Monday. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf initially suggested he had extended the deadline for the entire state. The current deadline requires elections officials to have received mail ballots by 8 p.m. on Tuesday, when polls close. “The count will continue for seven days after tomorrow," Wolf said Monday, as days of civil unrest and violent clashes over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis had officials scrambling to conduct Tuesday’s election safely. “I can’t do anything about the election day, but I am extending the time to actually get votes in,” Wolf said at a news conference in Philadelphia. “So if you vote and the vote gets in by next Tuesday… it’ll count. An extra seven days.” But Wolf apparently misspoke. His executive order, which allows mail ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Tuesday and received within a week, will apply only to Philadelphia and Delaware, Montgomery, Allegheny, Dauphin, and Erie Counties. "The civil disturbances in these affected counties have created one or more barriers to voters returning their ballots,” the order said, “including travel and public transportation disruptions, road closures and blockages, lack of access to ballot drop boxes, alteration of mobile ballot collection schedules, evacuations of buildings, and curfews.”

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia scrambles to prepare for primary amid George Floyd protests, coronavirus | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia election officials scrambled Monday to figure out how to conduct an already difficult election during widespread civil unrest. “We are concerned about the civil unrest activity as it continues to occur, but we hope that tomorrow the voters will be able to get to the polls and exercise their right to vote," said Lisa Deeley, chair of the Board of City Commissioners. “I mean, there is no greater form of protest or letting your voice be heard than going to vote on election day.” The commissioners, the three elected officials who run the city’s elections, relocated staff and about 30,000 ballots from their offices in City Hall this weekend as protesters set fire to cars outside and smashed windows. The demonstrations demanding accountability for the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and broader calls for racial and social justice have led to sometimes violent confrontations with police, damage to property, and looting. On Sunday, the National Guard was brought into the city to help maintain order. No mail ballots were affected during the protests, said Nick Custodio, deputy commissioner under Deeley, and elections staffers are now working from their satellite office at Delaware Avenue and Spring Garden Street, where much of the logistical work of running elections takes place anyway.

Pennsylvania: Days before the primary, Democrats and progressive groups continue push for more time to vote by mail | Jonathan Tamari and Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Just days before Pennsylvania’s primary election, key ground rules are being challenged in four cases now pending before state courts. In the last week alone, Montgomery and Bucks Counties have asked their local courts to extend mail ballot deadlines in their counties; a group of voters in Southeastern Pennsylvania asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to give voters statewide an extra week to return ballots; and Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court for a one-week extension and to allow third parties such as friends, family, or political activists to collect and turn in mail ballots. The legal challenges have so far been unsuccessful but remained live Friday afternoon. The courts could scramble the election rules just days before people are set to cast their votes on or by Tuesday. State law requires that ballots be received by county elections officials by 8 p.m. on an election day; postmarks don’t count. County officials warn that thousands of voters will receive their ballots too late to return them in time. But Republicans opposing the lawsuits have said changes would invite voter fraud.

Pennsylvania: State election officials see finish line in focus for primary | Julian Routh/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Tuesday will mark the end of a monthslong sprint by Pennsylvania officials to disease-proof the 2020 primary election in the face of COVID-19, and finally reveal the results of counties’ improvisational decision-making as some voters head to physical polling places and others — many others — wait for their mail-in ballots to be tallied. On ballots across Allegheny County, for example, are one contested Congressional primary, two state Senate races, 10 state House contests, a presidential primary — though technically uncontested — and an auditor general race featuring one of their own. But perhaps more important than who’s on the ballot this year is how that ballot’s administered, and whether voters are able to safely and efficiently exercise their right to vote. Though much of that will remain unknown until the end of Tuesday, it’s an undeniable fact that Pennsylvania received more mail-in ballots than most counties were prepared to process, and that voting will look different on Election Day for those who choose to vote in-person or missed the mail-in deadline. Pennsylvania’s 67 counties will arrive at this moment in history after about 80 days of fierce advocacy for vote-by-mail, an all-hands-on-deck bureaucratic blitz to process those ballots, and a scavenger hunt for state and federal resources that some experts allege wasn’t enough.