Clumsy early voting option in Pennsylvania supports election offices

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A cumbersome and time-consuming option for early voting in the largest voting district in the country Presidential battleground state causes frustration, leads to hours-long lines and leads to disenfranchisement lawsuits as voters flood county offices unprepared for the influx.

The confusion is partly due to a Pennsylvania law passed just before the pandemic, and partly due to a variety of Republican voters follow their party's calls and former President Donald Trump to vote early. Trump's pleas for his supporters to vote ahead of the Nov. 5 election come after he repeatedly attacked forms of early voting in recent years.

In the suburban Philadelphia seat of Bucks County, often considered a political frontrunner, voters waited up to three hours on Tuesday, the last day to request an absentee ballot.

Why the change compared to four years ago, when relatively few voters attempted to request early voting in person?

“Because he told us to vote early. I just tried to make it 'too big to manipulate,'” said Marlene Burns, 52, repeating one of Trump's standard phrases urging his supporters to vote. “So yeah, that’s why I’m voting at the courthouse and why I wanted to cast my vote in person.”

Fear of early voting is the latest turmoil to emerge Vote in Pennsylvaniawhich has and is by far the largest pool of electoral votes of all the contested states the state that is most visited on the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets this year. Leading up to Election Day in the state, there were numerous fights over mail-in ballots, some of which ended up on the list on the doorstep of the US Supreme Court.

The culprit in this latest controversy is a law that the then-Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Legislature passed in 2019 to expand mail-in voting. They have created an early voting system that is very different from that in most states, where registered voters can go to a vote center in their county and cast their ballot before Election Day.

Instead, in a practice known as “mail-on-demand voting,” voters in Pennsylvania can show up at their county government offices, request an absentee ballot and then fill out an application. This form must be reviewed to ensure the person is eligible to vote and then approved. Once this happens, a ballot must be printed.

It's a process that can take about 12 minutes per voter if everything goes well. Voters have the option to fill out and submit the ballot on site, take it home with them or have it sent to their home by post. If they don't fill out the ballot right away, they can return it by mail or put it in a mailbox.

County election officials say they need more funding to hire staff to help with on-demand early voting and try to handle the surge in voters. Making matters worse, offices only have a single printer designed specifically for the first in-person ballots, which include indoor and outdoor envelopes.

The process and voter demands have burdened election offices and angered voters.

“It's an uncertain process for a lot of people because it's relatively new, and it's also kind of inefficient,” Bob Harvie, chairman of the Bucks County Board of Elections, said in an interview. “Changes definitely need to be made.”

In response to criticism and misinformation on social media, Bucks County government said any voter whose turn it is until Tuesday at 5 p.m. will be allowed to request an absentee ballot. The Secretary of State's office issued a statement confirming this and offered this advice to voters: “Please be patient.”

Other counties assured early voters that they would have the opportunity to submit their ballots by Tuesday night's deadline.

It's a system that voters and officials are still familiarizing themselves with. The 2020 election saw a surge in mail-in ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2022 midterm elections did not see the turnout typical of a presidential year.

Harvie said counties need money to provide staff and equipment for early voting. He would also like to see a change in state law that would allow voters to check a box to automatically receive a mail-in ballot each year if they wish, rather than being forced to request one every election.

But Pennsylvania's politically divided state government has largely stalled on modernizing election laws since 2019.

As the early voting period drew to a close, Republican lawmakers said in a letter to Bucks County officials that they fielded complaints from voters about the county office being closed over the weekend while people were still waiting in line to cast an absentee ballot apply for. In a statement posted on its website, Bucks County said it may have to stop accepting applicants “to ensure all applications are processed by the end of the day.”

Harvie acknowledged there was confusion about the state's early voting system.

“If you're told, yes, you can have someone do early voting, and then you show up and you're told you can't do early voting — you know, voters aren't sure who to believe ” he said.