Pennsylvania county to begin hand recount of 2020 votes for president, state auditor general on Jan. 9 | John Beauge/PennLive

The hand recount of the 2020 general election ballots for president and state auditor general in Lycoming County is to begin Jan. 9. The county Board of Elections in October voted 2-1 to do the recount of ballots for president and one statewide office to prove the electronic tabulation is accurate and to restore vote confidence. Approximately 5,000, people, many of whom identified themselves with the conservative Patriots group, sought a recount even though President Trump outpolled Joe Biden in the county, 41,462 to 16,971. Nearly 60,000 ballots will be counted by up to 40 county employees who will be pulled off their normal jobs. They first will be trained by elections director Forest Lehman. The cost of the recount has not been determined, Commissioner Scott L. Metzger said Wednesday. No one extra is being hired, he said. It is no different than taking county employees off their regular jobs to assist after an election, he said.

Full Article: Pa. county to begin hand recount of 2020 votes for president, state auditor general on Jan. 9 – pennlive.com

Pennsylvania: Inside the post-election review designed to give voters more confidence in the results | Carter Walker/Pennsylvania Capital-Star

A person approaches the table and picks up a 10-sided die. She rolls. Four. The next roller in line takes her turn. Seven. The unusual die, shaped like an elongated diamond, may seem a curiosity except to those who use it most: “board gamers and elections officials,” Jonathan Marks, Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary of state, said. But the rollers, employees of the Pennsylvania Department of State, are not casting their dice to determine their next move in Dungeons & Dragons. Instead, they are generating a long, random number that will determine the course of Pennsylvania’s 2022 risk-limiting audit. A risk-limiting audit is a type of post-election review designed to give statistical confidence that an election outcome was accurate. This year is the first when all 67 counties are required to participate in one of these audits before certifying their election results. The math used to conduct the audit is available to the public, though practitioners agree it is hard to understand. Elections officials who have used it said the audit took time to understand but they now have confidence in it, and they hope it will give the public more confidence as well that election outcomes are accurate.

Full Article: Inside the post-election review designed to give Pa. voters more confidence in the results – Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Pennsylvania judge backs penalties against county in voting machine case | Mark Scolforo/Associated Press

A Pennsylvania judge has recommended the state’s high court impose civil contempt penalties against a Republican-majority county government that this summer secretly allowed a third party to copy data from voting machines used in the 2020 election lost by former President Donald Trump. Commonwealth Court President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer’s 77-page report issued late Friday said the July inspection and copying of computer data from machines rented by Fulton County was a willful violation of a court order designed to prevent evidence from being spoiled. She recommended that the justices find that the county, based on the actions of Republican Commissioners Stuart Ulsh and Randy Bunch, “engaged in vexatious, obdurate, and bad faith conduct” in their lawsuit against the Department of State over whether a 2021 inspection by another outside group meant the machines could no longer be used. Cohn Jubelirer, an elected Republican, recommended that the county be ordered to pay some of the state’s legal fees and that the Dominion Voting Systems Inc. machines in question be turned over to a third party for safekeeping at the county’s expense.

Full Article: Judge backs penalties against county in voting machine case | AP News

Pennsylvania: How ten-sided dice play into state’s post-election audit | Justin Sweitzer/City & State

On Thursday, officials at the Pennsylvania Department of State rolled the dice. Literally. To kick off the state’s post-election audit of this month’s race for governor, department staff rolled 20 ten-sided dice to create a “seed number” used to randomly select batches of ballots to audit. That seed number will then be entered into Arlo, an audit software tool used to select random batches of ballots for auditors in each county to manually review. The auditors will then conduct a hand tally of the votes cast for governor in each batch, according to Department of State officials. The department will then compile the results of the audit and determine whether the statistical criteria needed to confirm the election results has been met. The audit, known as a risk-limiting audit or RLA, involves auditing a randomly-selected batch of ballots to confirm the outcome of the election. The number of ballots audited depends on how wide the margin was in a particular race.

Full Article: How ten-sided dice play into Pennsylvania’s post-election audit – City & State Pennsylvania

Most Pennsylvania counties blaze through ballots under Act 88’s continuous-count rule | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Despite some initial concerns with a new requirement that most Pennsylvania counties tally their mail-in ballots nonstop, election workers plowed through the job Tuesday and Wednesday while reporting no major problems. Passed by the Legislature late last summer, Act 88 offered grants to counties for election administration costs. But there was a catch: Counties that took the money could not stop counting mail ballots until every one had been tallied. All but four of the state’s 67 counties took the state up on the offer. Many counties already had some experience with nonstop counting from past elections. But the legal requirement adds new pressure and prompted counties to develop new processes to ensure they comply with it, underscoring all the ways in which election officials in the state are still adjusting to manage the relatively new mail-in voting system there. “We have done that in the past. That’s not new to us,” said Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, chair of the Lancaster County Board of Elections.

Full Article: Act 88 forced Pennsylvania counties to count ballots nonstop. Here’s how they did it. – Votebeat Pennsylvania – Nonpartisan local reporting on elections and voting

Pennsylvania Supreme Court clarifies order on mail ballots as another lawsuit filed | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

The scramble to figure out which Pennsylvania mail ballots to count and reject based on handwritten dates continued Saturday. A state Supreme Court order Tuesday — that many had earlier hoped would settle the matter for this election — directed counties to reject mail ballots missing those dates as well as those where the voter put a wrong date on their ballot. But the decision has since stirred uncertainty among elections administrators over what exactly constitutes an incorrect date and drawn new litigation from advocates who say rejecting ballots over what amounts to a mistake threatens to potentially disenfranchise thousands of legal voters. On Saturday, the state Supreme Court unexpectedly issued an additional order clarifying its definition: Mail-in ballots are to be rejected in this election if the handwritten dates fall before Sept. 19, 2022, or after Nov. 8 (Election Day), and absentee ballots are to be rejected if they are dated before Aug. 30, 2022, or after Nov. 8. Absentee and mail-in ballots are essentially the same, but under state law “absentee ballots” are for voters who are unable to make it to their polling places on Election Day, while “mail-in ballots” are for anyone else who chooses to vote by mail. Sept. 19 is the start of the state’s 50-day mail voting window, when counties can begin to print and send mail-in and absentee ballots. Counties treat absentee and mail-in ballots the same way and send them out at the same time.

Full Article: Pa. Supreme Court clarifies order on mail ballots as another lawsuit filed

Pennsylvania has seen unSusual threat levels against poll workers: FBI | Siafa Lewis/CBS

As Election Day nears, officials in Philadelphia are reminding everyone that voter intimidation and harassment is illegal. Pennsylvania is one of seven states the FBI has identified as having seen unusual threat levels against poll workers. That has led to a shortage of poll workers and resulted in Philadelphia increasing pay for poll workers. Additionally, there are concerns about voter intimidation at polling places and officials are trying to get ahead of it all. “Sometimes with extremists, it’s necessary to knock on their foreheads early, and that’s what we’re doing now,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said. “We’re making sure you have the information you need so you do not get yourself into a pair of handcuffs, because believe me, if you try to interfere with or erase the votes of Philadelphians, that’s exactly where you’re going to be.” Krasner also warned that they have handcuffs, jail cells and Philadelphia juries ready for anyone who breaks the law. “Rest assured Philadelphians, it will be safe for you to vote the same as it’s always been,” City commissioner Omar Sabir said.

Full Article: Pa. has seen unusual threat levels against poll workers: FBI – CBS Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Supreme Court says undated mail ballots should be segregated, not counted | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania counties must segregate and not count mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates, the state Supreme Court said Tuesday in a ruling that could affect thousands of votes in November’s midterm elections. The order came as the result of a 3-3 deadlock on the court over whether rejecting such ballots — which have been at the center of an ongoing political and legal fight between Democrats and Republicans — violates federal civil rights law. Three of the justices said throwing out the ballots of otherwise qualified voters over a missing or incorrect date would improperly exclude legal votes. Three others disagreed. The seventh spot on the court remains vacant after the death of former Chief Justice Max Baer. “We hereby direct that the Pennsylvania county boards of elections segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,” the court said in its brief order, which was not immediately accompanied by any opinions explaining the justices’ reasoning. The order said only that opinions would be released later.

Full Article: Pa. Supreme Court says undated mail ballots should be segregated, not counted

Pennsylvania counties can help voters fix mail ballot errors after state Supreme Court deadlocks on the issue | eremy Roebuck and Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for counties to help voters fix errors like missing signatures on mail ballots before Election Day. A lower court last month denied an attempt to block counties from helping voters “cure” their ballot errors. The state Supreme Court on Friday said it had deadlocked on the appeal of that decision, which means the lower court decision is automatically affirmed. The high court normally has seven members, but Chief Justice Max Baer died last month. Of the remaining six members, Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht said they agreed with the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court’s decision that allowed ballot curing to continue. Chief Justice Debra Todd and Justices Sallie Updyke Mundy and Kevin Brobson said they would have reversed it. The three-sentence order dealt a defeat to the Republican National Committee and other GOP groups, which had filed the appeal in one of the latest fronts in the state’s contentious partisan battle over which ballots should be counted.

Full Article: Pa. counties can help voters fix mail ballot errors after state Supreme Court deadlocks on the issue

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia might scale back a process for catching double votes — because of GOP ‘election integrity’ rules | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia elections officials are poised to remove or significantly scale back a procedure meant to catch double votes. Ironically, it’s because of rules Republicans imposed on “election integrity grants.” Otherwise, the city risks losing millions of dollars. The procedure, known as poll book reconciliation, compares mail ballots with poll books from Election Day. If a person is listed in the poll books as voting in person but the city also receives a mail ballot from the same voter, the mail ballot is rejected to ensure only one vote per person counts. The process caught dozens of accidental double votes in 2020, but none in the last three elections. But poll book reconciliation temporarily stops the vote count, sometimes for a day or more. And that appears to conflict with a new state law known as Act 88, which provides state election funding with conditions, including that counting “continue without interruption.” Now local officials have to decide whether to risk millions of dollars by keeping the procedure in place to catch double votes — or expose anew a vulnerability that was addressed in previous elections.

Full Article: Philadelphia catches double votes. Republican ‘election integrity’ rules make it harder.

Pennsylvania undated mail ballots likely to get new challenges after Supreme Court ruling | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday invalidated a lower-court decision that had allowed undated mail ballots to be counted in Pennsylvania, injecting new uncertainty into election rules that could affect thousands of votes next month. The order is almost certain to prompt new lawsuits over an issue that has become a consistent political and legal fight over the last two years, and it immediately ignited a new round of disputes over what the decision meant. Republicans have sought to throw out undated mail ballots that arrive on time but without a handwritten date on their outer envelopes as required by state law. Democrats have fought to count them. But Tuesday’s decision didn’t address the substance of that debate. It instead vacated a May decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on procedural grounds, leaving unresolved the central question of whether elections officials should count undated ballots. Amid that uncertainty, both sides rushed to interpret the ruling’s practical effects. The Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections as part of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration, said it expects counties to count undated ballots, citing a series of state court rulings earlier this year. Republicans said counties should reject undated ballots, citing state election law and a differing set of state court rulings. What is an ‘undated’ mail ballot?

Full Article: Pa. undated mail ballots likely to get new challenges after Supreme Court ruling

Pennsylvania: Unresolved areas in mail voting law likely to spur fresh confusion, legal challenges | Stephen Caruso and Katie Meyer/WITF

As millions of Pennsylvanians once again go to the polls this November, some key questions on mail ballots remain unsettled, opening the door for more legal action and public confusion after the upcoming gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. In a recent live event with Spotlight PA, Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman stressed that these issues will not affect the accuracy of the vote. But rules on key voting mechanics such as drop boxes or a chance for voters to fix a ballot error could vary by county. As such, people who plan to vote by mail should brush up on local rules to ensure there aren’t any issues with their ballots, Chapman said. “I really want people to make a plan to vote,” she said. “Think about it. Do you want to vote by mail?” Elections in Pennsylvania have become highly political, and the state election law has some gray areas. The patchwork of mail voting rules largely stems from 2019, when the legislature and governor passed a bipartisan overhaul of the commonwealth’s election law and allowed no-excuse mail voting for the first time.

Full Article: Unresolved areas in Pennsylvania mail voting law likely to spur fresh confusion, legal challenges | WITF

Pennsylvania counties can help voters fix problems with their mail ballots, state court rules | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Phildelphia Inquirer

A state judge cleared the way Thursday for Pennsylvania counties to continue helping voters correct small mistakes on their submitted mail ballots, saying nothing in the law prohibits the practice. The decision was a loss, at least temporarily, for Republicans who have tried in recent years to stop local elections officials from offering voters the opportunity to fix errors like missing signatures that would otherwise cause their ballots to be thrown out. “Petitioners have not proven that there is a clear violation of the Election Code or the law interpreting the Election Code,” Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote in her 58-page opinion. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee, which had asked the judge to bar the practice — known as “ballot curing” — before the November election. They cited the fact that there is no consistent curing policy across the state, and that some counties allow voters to fix errors while others do not.

Full Article: Pennsylvania counties can help voters fix problems with their mail ballots, state court rules

Pennsylvania election offices challenged by surge of voting record requests | Jan Murphy/PennLive

With the Nov. 8 election less than two months away, county election offices across Pennsylvania are moving into crunch time for preparing for Election Day. But many are facing an added challenge this year. Along with checking voting equipment, processing voter registration/mail-in and absentee ballot applications and proofreading ballots, many say they are dealing with an unusual number of Right-to-Know requests for voting and election-related records. “I can’t believe how many we get,” said Sean Drasher, who has been Lebanon County’s elections officer for less than a year. “The feedback I’m getting from my colleagues is they’ve never seen anything like it.” Counties in other battleground states across the U.S. have experienced a similar phenomenon. Lorian County, in northeastern Ohio, for example, has received requests seeking an estimated 1 million documents, most related to the 2016 and 2020 elections, putting a strain on its election day preparations. In Pennsylvania, the picture is more mixed. Montgomery County spokeswoman Kelly Cofrancisco said there’s been a “substantial increase in RTK requests” submitted to her county’s Voter Services Office. State elections officials say other counties too have reported adding staff or dedicating staff time to respond to an unusual number of such requests.

Full Article: Election offices challenged by surge of voting record requests – pennlive.com

Pennsylvania: Election-denying ‘patriot’ groups are trying to stop the use of electronic voting machines across state | Gillian McGoldrick/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Across Pennsylvania, conservative activists are trying to stop the usage of electronic voting machines at the behest of former President Donald Trump and his allies who continue to claim without proof the 2020 election was stolen. Activists began collecting signatures to get a referendum question on the November ballot to stop the use of electronic voting machines, following a directive from Mr. Trump and his top supporters, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and former Army intelligence officer Seth Keshel, who have made careers traveling the country to spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Now, these “patriot” groups have organized ballot referendum efforts in at least 16 counties, including Butler and Washington. “That’s what we have to do to save our country,” Mr. Lindell said in a pre-recorded message played at Mr. Trump’s rally in Wilkes-Barre on Sept. 3. In the years since the 2020 election, Mr. Trump’s closest allies have demonized several components of Pennsylvania’s election system, such as mail-in voting, ballot drop boxes and now, the use of electronic voting machines. These fears have crept into county government centers all around Pennsylvania and across the country from newly engaged citizens demanding their county commissioners overhaul the state’s election system back to a pre-21st century one.

Source: Election-denying ‘patriot’ groups are trying to stop the use of electronic voting machines across Pa. | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania: Doug Mastriano Plans to Use His Secretary of State Pick to Disrupt Elections | Jake Blumgart/Bolts

Doug Mastriano is a Donald Trump loyalist, and an ardent proponent of the former president’s baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election. He was outside the capitol on Jan. 6th, brought supporters to D.C. that day, and has been subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating the riots. Now, Mastriano is also the GOP nominee in Pennsylvania’s governor’s race in November. His victory would hand over control of a large swing state to a hard right election denier in the lead-up to the next presidential race. “He has revealed the Deceit, Corruption, and outright Theft of the 2020 Presidential Election, and will do something about it,” Trump said of Mastriano when he endorsed him in May. A centerpiece of Mastriano’s promise to revamp the state’s election system is to flex the governor’s authority to choose Pennsylvania’s secretary of state. “As governor, I get to appoint the secretary of state. And I have a voting reform-minded individual who’s been traveling the nation and knows voting reform extremely well,” Mastriano told Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for Trump, in an April interview. “That individual has agreed to be my secretary of state.”

Full Article: Doug Mastriano Plans to Use His Secretary of State Pick to Disrupt Pennsylvania Elections | Bolts

Pennsylvania: Voting machine maker moves to subpoena former secretary of state | Zach Hoopes/PennLive

Dominion Voting Systems expects to depose Pennsylvania’s former secretary of state as part of a subpoena in the voting machine maker’s defamation case against Fox News regarding the 2020 presidential election. Documents from the Dauphin County prothonotary’s office indicate that Dominion expects to serve a subpoena to the Pennsylvania Department of State for records that may be germane to its lawsuit. As part of that, Dominion’s attorneys plan to depose former Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar next month. The $1.6 billion defamation case is being heard in Delaware Superior Court, with Dauphin County records showing Dominion’s attorneys filed notice to serve the out-of-state subpoena and deposition notice. The Department of State is aware of and reviewing the subpoena, according to department press secretary Grace Griffaton. In the lawsuit, filed last year, Dominion accuses Fox News and its affiliates of knowingly spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories about the security of Dominion’s machines and the election results they produced, despite the cable news network having information from other sources – including from federal and state election monitors like the Pennsylvania Department of State – proving that such claims of widespread voting fraud were impossible. The subpoena covers any documents or communications regarding the Department of State’s certification of Dominion’s voting machines, the integrity of the 2020 election generally, and any communications the department may have had with Fox News or with the campaign of former President Donald Trump.

Source: Voting machine maker moves to subpoena Pa.’s former secretary of state

Pennsylvania elections official blames spreadsheet for state’s mistake in certifying a county’s election results | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

A top elections official said Monday that “human error” in tracking the results of the May 17 primary election led Pennsylvania to inadvertently certify a county’s vote counts that the state deems to be inaccurate. The embarrassing revelation came in a filing before Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court, where the state is seeking to break a standoff with three counties — Berks, Fayette, and Lancaster — that refuse to include undated mail ballots in their official totals in defiance of guidance from the Department of State. The department, which oversees elections, sued the counties last month, asking a judge to order them to do so. But in a court filing Monday, Jonathan Marks, the deputy elections secretary, acknowledged that a fourth county, Butler, had also refused to count those ballots — and that the county had notified the department three weeks before the lawsuit was filed. Marks apologized to the court for what he described as an oversight resulting from “a manual process” — a spreadsheet — the department had used to track which counties were counting undated ballots. Butler County was misclassified in the spreadsheet, he said, and from that point forward was left out of the state’s campaign to push counties that hadn’t included them. As a result, the state didn’t include Butler County in its lawsuit. It certified the county’s election results along with 63 other counties.

Full Article: Pa. elections official blames spreadsheet for state’s mistake in certifying a county’s election results

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s mail voting law after a long legal fight | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania’s mail-voting law is constitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, upholding the 2019 measure that allows any voter to use mail ballots and removing a cloud of uncertainty heading into the midterm elections. The law dramatically expanded mail voting from a method that had been allowed only in a very small number of cases — about 5% of votes in any given election — to one used by millions over the last two years. It was the product of bipartisan negotiations between Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Republicans who control the state legislature, the biggest change to Pennsylvania election law in generations. But its implementation in 2020 came during both the first year of the pandemic and a heated presidential election. As massive numbers of voters cast ballots by mail, state and county elections officials tried to build out the system — in some cases triggering Republican outrage and lawsuits over their decisions. That was further stoked by then-President Donald Trump, who began attacking mail voting months before his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Republicans have continued to try to dismantle the law known as Act 77, with some saying it has been abused in its implementation, and others espousing bogus conspiracy theories about widespread fraud. The resulting partisan divide over a mail voting law that had been carefully negotiated — and trumpeted — by both Democrats and Republicans was on full display following the ruling Tuesday.

Full Article: Pennsylvania mail voting law Act 77 upheld by state Supreme Court

Pennsylvania: Butler County auditing some 2020 mail-in ballots to gather information for future elections | Jesse Bunch/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Officials in Butler County began an audit of ballots from the 2020 general and state elections on Wednesday — a move leaders said is a bipartisan effort to collect data on what it would take to conduct similar reviews for future elections. “We’re doing this as a way to understand what that type of a process would take, what that would look like time wise,” said Leslie Osche, a Republican and chair of the Butler County board of commissioners. … County Commissioner and Democrat Kevin Boozel called claims of widespread claims voter fraud from former President Donald Trump and politicians across the Republican party in the wake of that year’s election the “elephant in the room” during Wednesday’s public meeting. “Now everyone’s paying attention. Whether it’s right, wrong, or indifferent, our job, I feel, is about integrity,” Mr. Boozel said. “Do I like doing the 2020 review? Hell no. Do I believe that we owe it to people to be as transparent as possible, and if people want to see something, do we owe that to them? I do — with reason.” Mr. Boozel said he did not know how much it would cost the county for the review.

Full Article: Butler County auditing some 2020 mail-in ballots to gather information for future elections | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania counties want to count mail-in ballots early. State lawmakers have yet to agree. | Sam Dunklau/WITF

Pennsylvania county election departments have been clamoring for a legal change they say would ease the pressure of ballot processing and counting. Though the GOP-controlled General Assembly has offered up the change in several bills, the idea remains in procedural limbo. Counties have said they want to open and sort mail-in ballots, a process known as pre-canvassing, before Election Day. Right now, workers process several million mail-in votes each election, but can only start doing so once polls open. In the 2018 midterms, county workers processed just over 205,000 mail-in votes. That was before lawmakers opened up mail-in voting to all registered voters under Act 77 of 2019. The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, a group that lobbies the legislature on behalf of all 67 counties, has made more pre-canvassing time one of its policy priorities in 2021 and 2022. The organization has also asked lawmakers to set an earlier deadline for returning mail-in ballot applications – to no avail.

Full Article: Pa. counties want to count mail-in ballots early. State lawmakers have yet to agree. | WITF

Pennsylvania is in an election results certification crisis over the primary, and the state just sued three counties | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania’s quietly in the middle of an election results certification crisis. Nearly two months after the May 17 primary election, three of the state’s 67 counties have refused to count “undated” mail ballots, defying both an earlier court order and the Pennsylvania Department of State’s requests. The other 64 counties did certify results with the undated ballots, which were received on time but on which voters didn’t write a date as required by law. The department, which oversees elections, either has to certify the results knowing the vote counts are inconsistent — or find a way to force the counties into alignment. But the state has no real power on its own to actually run or regulate elections; it can’t force counties to do many things, let alone certify results a specific way. On Monday, the state sued Berks, Fayette, and Lancaster Counties in Commonwealth Court. The immediate fight is about which votes to count in this election — are they supposed to accept undated mail ballots or throw them out? — and how the law interacts with state and federal court rulings.

Full Article: Pa. sues counties for not counting undated mail ballots from 2022 primary election

Pennsylvania: Fight over 2020 election records lands in court | Mark Scolforo/Associated Press

A county judge in Williamsport has to decide whether to force officials to provide voter-by-voter electronic election records after the state Office of Open Records ruled Pennsylvania law makes them confidential. Heather Honey, who heads the Lebanon, Pennsylvania-based firm Haystack Investigations, sought in October a digital copy of Lycoming County’s “cast vote record” for the 2020 General Election in which Democratic challenger Joe Biden unseated Republican President Donald Trump. Lycoming told Honey no, saying Honey was essentially asking for the contents of ballot boxes and voting machines, information that the state Election Code declares off-limits for public inspection. In a January decision, Office of Open Records appeals officer Erin Burlew agreed with the county elections director that the cast vote record “is the digital equivalent of the contents of ballot boxes.” Honey challenged that decision in county court in February, likening the cast vote record to a spreadsheet and describing it as “merely a digital report tallying the results of ballots scanned into a tabulator. The CVR is a report that is prepared after an election from a desktop computer that is not and never was the contents of a ballot box.”

Full Article: Fight over 2020 election records lands in Pennsylvania court | AP News

Pennsylvania Republicans are no closer to re-inspecting Fulton County’s 2020 voting machines | Sam Dunklau/WITF

A planned inspection of a rural Pennsylvania county’s voting equipment from 2020 remains on hold, despite a recent state court decision. South-central Fulton County, encouraged by state Senate Republicans, has been seeking a second inspection of Dominion voting machines that it used during the 2020 election. But the county has been mired in court challenges. At issue is whether Fulton can have its Dominion machines inspected, and whether the Department of State can stop an inspection from happening. Supporters of the effort have not explained how such an inspection would be carried out and have not clearly explained why one is necessary more than a year and a half after the machines were used. Former President Donald Trump, who won 85 percent of the vote there, continues to falsely assert that he lost to President Joe Biden because of systemic ballot fraud and procedural issues. There is no evidence of widespread fraud or machine tampering in Pennsylvania. Fulton County’s latest examination was set to happen in January after Commonwealth Court sided with the county in a lawsuit – but the state Supreme Court halted it when the Department of State appealed the lower court’s decision. It’s been on pause ever since. “I’m just a little frustrated with the Supreme Court for their delay,” said Sen. Cris Dush (R-Cameron), who leads the Senate committee that has spearheaded the latest inspection effort.

Full Article: Pennsylvania Republicans are no closer to re-inspecting Fulton County’s 2020 voting machines | WITF

Pennsylvania court orders counting of undated mail ballots in win for McCormick in his GOP Senate race against Oz | Jeremy Roebuck and Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

A Pennsylvania court on Thursday ordered counties to include undated mail ballots — those that arrived on time but were rejected solely because they were missing a handwritten date on their outer envelopes — in their vote counts. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Thursday ordered counties to include undated mail ballots in their vote counts — a legal victory for GOP Senate candidate David McCormick who had sued to include them in his neck-and-neck primary race against Mehmet Oz. In a 40-page opinion, President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer described the state’s practice of rejecting ballots that arrived without a required handwritten date from the voter on the outer envelope as a potentially unjust restriction of the right to vote. “The absence of a handwritten date on the exterior envelope could be considered a ‘minor irregularity’ without a compelling reason that justifies the disenfranchisement of otherwise eligible voters,” the judge wrote. Cohn Jubelirer’s ruling Thursday came in the form of a temporary injunction ordering counties to include the undated mail ballots in their vote tally for the state’s May 17 primaries. But in a nod to the provisional nature of her decision, she instructed counties to submit two sets of election results to the state: one with the undated ballots included and one without. That will allow the state to use the correct total should the ruling be reversed. If the final ruling mirrors the one she issued Thursday — and it withstands appeal — it would mean potentially thousands of votes are counted in future elections that previously would have been rejected. In the short term, however, it seems unlikely that the fresh votes that McCormick would pick up from among the roughly 800 undated Republican mail ballots in this year’s primary would be enough to push McCormick into the lead. He trails Oz by about 1,000 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast.

Full Article: Pennsylvania court orders counting of undated mail ballots in win for McCormick in his GOP Senate race against Oz

Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary heads to a recount as Oz and McCormick scrap over ballots in court | Jonathan Lai, Jeremy Roebuck, and Julia Terruso/Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s official: The razor’s edge primary contest between GOP Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and David McCormick is headed to a recount, state elections officials announced Wednesday, ensuring that the victor in the closely watched race won’t be officially declared for at least two weeks. The announcement came even as counties continued to tally lingering batches of ballots and the gap between the two candidates dwindled to fewer than 1,000 votes. Speaking at a news conference in Harrisburg, acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman said that Oz led McCormick by just 902 votes, or less than 0.08% of the more than 1.3 million ballots cast in their race. By Wednesday evening the margin had shrunk even further. That put their contest well within the 0.5% margin of victory that triggers an automatic recount under state law. And as Pennsylvania’s 67 counties prepared to begin the retallying process as early as Friday, Chapman vowed the recount would take place “transparently, as dictated by law.” “I know Pennsylvanians and, indeed, people throughout the country have been following this race attentively and are eagerly awaiting the results,” she said. “I thank everyone for their patience as we count every vote.”

Full Article: Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary heads to a recount as Oz and McCormick scrap over ballots in court

Pennsylvania: National GOP intervenes in Senate race vote-counting lawsuit | arc Levy/Associated Press

The national and state Republican parties are taking the same side as celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s neck-and-neck GOP primary contest for U.S. Senate and opposing a lawsuit that could help former hedge fund CEO David McCormick close the gap in votes. McCormick’s lawsuit was filed late Monday, less than 24 hours before Tuesday’s deadline for counties to report their unofficial results to the state. In it, McCormick asks the state Commonwealth Court to require counties to obey a brand-new federal appeals court decision and promptly count mail-in ballots that lack a required handwritten date on the return envelope. Oz, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has pressed counties not to count the ballots and the Republican National Committee and state GOP said they would go to court to oppose McCormick. In a statement, the RNC’s chief counsel, Matt Raymer, said “election laws are meant to be followed, and changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections.” Meanwhile, Tuesday, Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration issued guidance to counties saying that any ballots without dates must be counted, citing the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision from Friday.

Full Article: GOP intervenes in Pa. Senate race vote-counting lawsuit | AP News

Pennsylvania: U.S. Supreme Court stay on undated mail ballots injects uncertainty into Senate vote count | Jeremy Roebuck, Jonathan Lai, and Sean Collins Walsh/Philadelphia Inquirer

The U.S. Supreme Court injected fresh uncertainty Tuesday into the ongoing Republican primary recount for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race by temporarily blocking a lower court order on the counting of undated mail ballots, which have become a flash point in the close contest between Mehmet Oz and David McCormick. The two-sentence order — issued by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who oversees emergency matters arising from Pennsylvania for the court — threw a new variable into the high-stakes contest by blocking undated ballots from being counted in an unrelated election from Lehigh County last November. It came just hours after McCormick — who has pushed for undated ballots to be counted — appeared to make progress convincing the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to side with his view. The new cloud of uncertainty came as more counties began recounting votes in the race. Initial results show McCormick trailing Oz by fewer than 1,000 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast. The narrow margin has triggered an automatic recount to verify the winner, who will face Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in November. McCormick on Tuesday opened a new front in the court battles over which votes should count with a lawsuit seeking a hand recount of all ballots in 150 precincts in 12 Pennsylvania counties. The immediate impact of Alito’s order on the Senate race remains to be seen. It focused solely on the counting of votes in a contested 2021 judicial race in Lehigh County. But much like the lower court ruling that prompted Alito’s intervention Tuesday, its repercussions could reverberate widely.

Full Article: Pa. Republican Senate primary: U.S. Supreme Court issues stay on undated mail ballot issue

Pennsylvania Department of State addresses three Election Day issues, including two in midstate counties | Robby Brod/WITF

Pennsylvania’s primaries mostly went smoothly, but there were three incidents that prompted state officials to respond. Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, said about 22,000 mail-in ballots in Lancaster County printed by a new vendor had a code that couldn’t be read by the scanner. “To address this, the department recommends the best practice of assigning two-person teams to handmark new ballots. One will read out the marking from the original ballot; the second person will mark the ballot,” she said. “There’s also an observer who watches the process to make sure the re-marked ballot is accurate.” She said it will take “days” to count the affected ballots, which involves hand-counting them and putting them through the county-owned optical scan machine. Chapman said other counties in Pennsylvania use the same vendor, but the issue was contained to the Lancaster County ballots. Election officials in Berks County reported programming errors with their new electronic poll books. As a result, some polling places opened late, and lines were reported at about two dozen precincts.

Full Article: Pennsylvania Department of State addresses three Election Day issues, including two in midstate counties | WITF

Pennsylvania: Inside the Lancaster County operation where staff are remarking 16,000 mail ballots that could decide the GOP U.S. Senate primary | Gillian McGoldrick/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The fate of Tuesday’s Republican U.S. Senate primary race has come down to two of the state’s most populous counties — Lancaster and Allegheny — where there are still potentially significant numbers of ballots uncounted in a contest that’s still too close to call. Lancaster County is one of the most populated Republican strongholds in the state, meaning the remaining Republican ballots — approximately 5,500, according to the county’s GOP chair — likely will help decide the outcome of this race. Candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick were still within recount territory — within 0.5% of one another — as of Wednesday afternoon. In Allegheny County, a small number of votes are still uncounted — about 2%. But in a race this close, any of those votes could change the outcome of the election. Those results aren’t expected to be posted until Friday, according to county officials. Christa Miller, the chief elections clerk in Lancaster County, her staff and elections volunteers, are responsible for remarking 16,000 ballots that wouldn’t scan on Tuesday due to a printer error.

Full Article: Inside the Lancaster County operation where staff are remarking 16,000 mail ballots that could decide the GOP U.S. Senate primary | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette