Pennsylvania’s top elections official, Kathy Boockvar, said that voters have submitted about 1.6 million applications for mail-in and absentee ballots for the June 2 primary election.
That number, she said, is “off the charts” and beyond most expectations. Applications are pouring in ahead of next Tuesday’s deadline to apply, as counties make plans to dramatically reduce the number of physical polling place locations because of the coronavirus.
The fear of infection has made it difficult to recruit polling workers, and state and federal health guidelines have made it difficult to find polling places that can accommodate the demands of social distancing.
In a conference call on election issues organized by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey’s office, Secretary of the Commonwealth Boockvar said she does not expect to see lines at polling places in most locations, given the number of mail-in and absentee ballots requested and considering Gov. Tom Wolf’s restrictions that might be in place in some parts of Pennsylvania.
Some counties have already received more mail-in ballot applications than the entire vote total that they were expecting in the June 2 primary election, Boockvar said.
More than 3.2 million people cast ballots in the 2016 presidential primary election. However, this time around, the presidential nominations are uncontested.
Still, Boockvar conceded that the volume of mailed-in ballots will make it impossible to produce a result in close races on election night.
It will depend on how many ballots are actually submitted, she said. Some counties have received about 50% of the ballots for which voters applied, and those numbers vary tremendously across the state, she said.
To help with counting a surge of mailed-in ballots, a new state law moved up the time that counties can start preparing the mailed-in ballots to be counted, to 7 a.m. on Election Day, although the ballots can’t actually be counted until polls close.
“I don’t think it’s going to to be sufficient for many counties,” Boockvar said. “So ... some of the races that are not close we will get results quickly, but if there are close races, it may take a couple of days.”
In the meantime, counties are dramatically scaling back on polling places. Allegheny County, the state’s second-most populous county behind Philadelphia, received state approval to set up 211 polling places, down from about 830. Montgomery County, the third-most populous county, is planning to set up 140, down from 352.
The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot is 5 p.m. on May 26. Registered voters can go to VotesPa.com/ApplyMailBallot and fill out the online form with a Pennsylvania driver’s license or PennDOT-issued photo ID handy. Exceptions and other forms of ID can also be found on the website.
First Published: May 21, 2020, 1:47 p.m.
Updated: May 21, 2020, 1:47 p.m.