Democratic Sens. Amanda Cappelletti (D-Montgomery) and Katie Muth (D-Montgomery) listen to testimony at a Democratic Policy Committee hearing on Sept. 25, 2024
Democrats and non-partisan election advocates are calling on the Pennsylvania state Senate to pass a bill that would allow more pre-canvassing of mail-in votes before election day. However, nothing is likely to change before election day
As it stands, Pennsylvania election officials are allowed to start pre-canvassing mail-in ballots at 7 a.m. on election day. But because the number of mail-in voters increased sharply around the 2020 election, after a no-excuse mail-in voting policy was implemented and concerns over COVID-19 kept many from the polls, elections officials say a single day may not be enough time to prepare ballots for counting and tabulate results.
Pre-canvassing is the process of preparing ballots before they are officially counted. That means removing ballots from their secrecy envelopes, inspecting them for errors, flattening them and scanning or processing them so they can be more easily counted on election day. It does not include counting or tabulating results.
Numerous states with both Republican- and Democrat-majority governments already allow for pre-canvassing mail-in votes before election day.
Concerns over Pennsylvania’s current pre-canvassing restrictions were raised during a Senate Democratic policy committee on Wednesday, where advocates and county elections officials were invited to testify.
“Local officials from both parties have been clear about the value of providing additional time before election day to begin the work of inspecting ballot return envelopes, extracting the ballots within and scanning those ballots to record the votes” said Lauren Cristella, the President and CEO of the Philadelphia-based Committee of Seventy, a non-partisan group focused on anti-corruption and promoting open elections.
A bill that would allow counties to do just that passed the state House in May on a party-line vote. It now sits in the Senate State Government committee. House Bill 847 would let county election officials begin pre-canvassing up to seven days before an election.
As is already the case, representatives from each political party and campaign on the ballot would be allowed to oversee the pre-canvassing process. Though no one observing or participating would be allowed to disclose any election results.
But the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled state Senate.
“Ensuring voter confidence and the security of elections remain our top priorities, and making any substantive changes just six weeks away from the election would be unwise,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana). “However, as we look beyond November, any discussions of changes to the administration of elections in our commonwealth must also include a Constitutional voter identification requirement.”
The majority chair of the Senate state government committee, Cris Dush (R-Jefferson), echoed a similar sentiment in an interview on Pennsylvania Cable Network Tuesday.
“We’re not running any new election bills for the remainder of this term, and the reason is the confusion that’s being caused,” Dush said.
But advocates of expanding pre-canvassing say that such a change would be a boon for elections officials and public trust.
According to Cristellas, when a law expanding access to mail-in ballots was passed in 2019, legislators did not take into account the way COVID-19 would dramatically increase the number of mail-in voters.
Allowing for earlier pre-canvassing of mail-in votes, she said, would effectively allow the state to keep up with that trend.
In the 2016 election, over 260,000 mail-in and absentee ballots were counted in Pennsylvania. More than 2.6 million were counted in the 2020 election.
And, as happened in 2020, when the large number of mail-in ballots led to delays, conspiracy theories began to spread.
“We need to get the results out the day of the election or people start to question the election,” said Jeff Reber, a Union County commissioner and the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania’s election reform committee chair. “The spotlight is certainly going to be on Pennsylvania … We are under a constant microscope and the more time you could give us the better.”
Both Vice President Kamala Harris’ and former President Donald Trump’s campaigns see Pennsylvania as a must-win state in the upcoming election. And its 19 electoral votes could be decided by a slim margin.
James Allen, the Delaware County Elections Director, said speedy results are especially hard to get without expanded pre-canvassing in a state like Pennsylvania where elections can be decided by mere thousands of votes and absentee or provisional ballot counts can swing an election.
In other states with wider margins, like California or West Virginia, even if absentee votes are still being counted after election day, the results are all but guaranteed.
“When the decision hangs in the balance and there are tight contests, the attention seems to be ‘why is it taking so long,’” Allen said. “Well, it’s taking that long in all 50 states, it’s just that the spotlight is on us.”
The committee testifiers also called for the legislature to make other updates to state election laws, though likely after the election.
In particular, testifiers asked the legislature to clarify in law questions that are currently being decided by the courts that will affect how mail-in voting works in the coming election. For example, clarifying requirements for drop boxes for mail-in ballots, or whether or not counties are required to have notice and cure policies, where voters who make mistakes on mail-in ballots should be notified and given a chance to correct them.
Another case before the Supreme Court will determine whether or not election officials must count ballots even if voters forget to date the return envelopes.