Pennsylvania’s campaign to encourage voting by mail in the June 2 primary election has already resulted in more than 1 million registered voters applying for mail-in ballots. It’s a logical move that will reduce the number of people going to the polls for in-person voting and greatly lessens the likelihood of spreading the coronavirus.

What the governor and Legislature need to do now is give county election officials some leeway in getting all of those mail-in ballots counted in a timely fashion.

This will be the first election under Pennsylvania’s revamped voting law that allows for anyone to apply for a mail-in ballot. In the past, voters could apply for absentee ballots if they were going to be out of the area on Election Day or had some other valid reason.

In the 2016 presidential primary election, about 84,000 of the state’s 8.5 million registered voters used an absentee ballot. Thus far, more than 10 times that number have already applied to vote by mail and the deadline extends until May 26, so the number is expected to continue growing.

For county elections officials, that means a huge increase in mail ballots will need to be verified and counted. Under the new law, however, officials are prohibited from counting the mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. on election day. Given that they will still have polls to set up and attend to, along with the myriad of other duties on election day, county officials worry that counting mail-in ballots might take days or even weeks.

Lawmakers could make the mail-in system work more efficiently for county officials by allowing them to start counting mail-in ballots days earlier, as many other states already do. No results should be reported until after the polls close, but getting an early start on counting the huge number of mail-in ballots will provide some much-needed flexibility for local elections officials.

Given the unknowns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, it is entirely possible that mail-in ballots will be the prime method of voting in the November presidential election, an election that typically has the highest voter participation. Tweaking the process now will go a long way toward a smoother vote count in November.

The governor and the Legislature took decisive action to move the state’s primary from April to June 2 when the coronavirus pandemic hit. The state has also earmarked $13 million in election-related funding for counties to use for staffing, supplies, equipment and other expenses related to the increase in mail-in voting. They should take one more step and give county election officials advance time to begin counting those thousands of ballots arriving by mail.

First Published: May 8, 2020, 10:00 a.m.