'Patience is the watch word' on Election Day as votes are counted, expert says

Voters throughout the nation may have to wait days to learn whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, election officials say.

But Pennsylvania is literally the keystone state to decide who wins the White House once Tuesday’s votes are counted.

“Please be patient as our counties work night and day doing so as quickly as they can and with integrity,” said Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt during a televised interview last month.

Election officials cautioned delays are not a cause for concern but rather the result of Pennsylvania law that limits when counties can begin counting what could be more than 2 million mail-in ballots.

It was a four-day wait for those results four years ago as counties tallied nearly 3 million mail-in ballots. Fewer mail-in ballots were requested by voters ahead of this election, and officials’ experience gleaned from four years of handling mail-in votes has raised the confidence level for a quicker turnaround to complete the counting this time.

But results will still likely take days, rather than hours.

“If we still have 5% of ballots out by midnight, clearly we will be waiting another day or two to call Pennsylvania,” said Jeff Greenburg, a former elections director in Mercer County who now serves as an adviser for the Committee of Seventy, a nonprofit nonpartisan election watchdog group based in Philadelphia.

“Patience is the watch word. The election is not over at 8:01 p.m. We have to wait for certification. It will not be as an extended timeline as we had in 2020. I am confident counties are prepared and in a much different place than we were in 2020,” Greenburg said.

Under state law, Pennsylvania’s counties cannot begin processing mail-in votes until 7 a.m. Election Day. Counties for the last four years lobbied to no avail for state lawmakers to amend voting laws to allow for mail-in ballots to be counted earlier.

State grants awarded over the last several years to purchase new equipment and hire additional personnel is expected to speed up the process.

In Allegheny County, where more than 250,000 mail-in ballots could be cast, officials said equipment is on hand to open as many as 50,000 mail-in ballot envelopes an hour. All mail-in ballots are expected to be counted by 8 p.m., when the polls close.

In Westmoreland County, where it took more than 24 hours to count more than nearly 50,000 mail-in ballots casts in 2020, officials said added equipment and experience will speed up the process. Almost 60,000 Westmoreland voters requested mail-in ballots this fall and as of Thursday more than 44,000 had been returned.

Election Bureau Director Greg McCloskey said the county expects to have all mail-in ballots counted by 10 p.m. Election Day.

Mail-in ballots accounted for about half of the votes cast in 2020. It will be a smaller percentage of all votes cast this year, officials said.

Millions of Pennsylvania are still expected to cast ballots at the polls. In Allegheny County there are 1,327 voting precincts. Results downloaded to flash drives will be transported to the county’s election warehouse and uploaded to the county’s computer system.

Westmoreland County has 306 precincts and those votes will be taken to the courthouse in Greensburg on flash drives, with results pushed out to the county’s website throughout the night. Officials say they expect totals from that day’s voting to be completed by about midnight.

Polls are scheduled to close at 8 p.m. on Election Day, but votes might still be cast later into the evening. Polls will remain open until everyone in line, even after the official closing time, can cast their ballot, officials said.

The potential for large numbers of provisional ballots could also lead to delays in declaring a winner. Voters whose eligibility is in question or those who requested mail-in ballots but choose instead to vote in person at the polls can cast provisional ballots on Election Day. Officials have seven days after the election to assess whether those ballots can be counted.

About 100,000 provisional ballots were cast in Pennsylvania in 2020, where the presidential race was decided by just more than 80,000 votes.

State law also allows ballots cast by overseas voters and military members to be counted if they arrive seven days after the election.

“We expect thousands of provisional and overseas ballots that must be counted, and that could take another day or two,” Greenburg said.

Officials said they are confident in the process.

“This is our Super Bowl, and we can’t mess it up,” said Westmoreland County Commissioner Sean Kertes.