Clumsy early voting option backs up election offices in Pennsylvania

PENNSYLVANIA - A clumsy and time-consuming early voting option in the nation's biggest presidential battleground state is creating frustration, leading to hours-long lines and prompting claims of disenfranchisement as voters swamp county offices that are not prepared to handle the influx.

The confusion is partly a result of a Pennsylvania law passed just before the pandemic, and partly from crowds of Republican voters heeding calls by their party and former President Donald Trump to vote early. Trump's entreaties to his supporters to cast ballots before the Nov. 5 election come after he repeatedly attacked forms of early voting in previous years.

In the seat of suburban Philadelphia’s Bucks County, often seen as a political bellwether, voters waited up to three hours on Tuesday, the final day to apply for a mail ballot.

Why the change from four years ago when relatively few voters tried to apply for early ballots in-person?

"Because he told us to vote early. I was just trying to make it ‘too big to rig,'" said Marlene Burns, 52, repeating one of Trump's standard lines encouraging his supporters to vote. "So yeah, that’s why I’m voting at the courthouse and wanted to have my vote in person."

The early voting angst is the latest dustup over voting in Pennsylvania, which has the largest trove of electoral votes of any battleground state and is by far the state most visited by the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets this year. The runup to Election Day in the state has been marked by numerous battles over mail ballots, some landing on the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court.

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

Instead, in a practice known as "on-demand mail voting," Pennsylvania voters can show up at their county government offices, request a mail ballot and then fill out an application. That form has to be reviewed to make sure the person is an eligible voter and then approved. Once that happens, a ballot has to be printed.

It's a process that can take about 12 minutes per voter, if everything goes right. Voters have the option of filling out the ballot on the spot and turning it in, taking it home or asking that it get mailed to their house. If they don't fill out the ballot right away, they can return it through the Postal Service or place it in a drop box.

County election officials say they need more funding to hire staff to help with on-demand early voting and are trying to accommodate the surge of voters. Compounding the problem is that offices have just a single printer especially designed for the early in-person ballots, which include inner and outer envelopes.

The process and voter demand have strained election offices and upset voters.

"It’s an uncertain process for a lot of people because it’s still relatively new, and it’s also kind of inefficient," said Bucks County Board of Elections Chairman Bob Harvie in an interview. "There’s definitely changes that need to be made."

Responding to criticism and misinformation on social media, the Bucks County government said every voter in line by 5 p.m. Tuesday would be allowed to apply for a mail ballot. The secretary of state's office issued a statement affirming that and had this advice for voters: "Please be patient."

Other counties assured early voters that they would have a chance to apply for their ballots by the Tuesday evening deadline.

It's a system voters and officials are still getting acquainted with. The 2020 election was marked by a surge in ballots cast by mail because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2022 midterm elections didn't see the kind of turnout typical in a presidential year.

Harvie said counties need money to help with staffing and equipment for early voting. He also would like to see a change in state law that would allow voters to check a box to automatically receive a mail ballot every year if they want, instead of being forced to apply for one with each election.

But Pennsylvania’s politically split state government has largely stalemated over 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 had fielded complaints from voters about the county office closing over the weekend while people were still in line to apply for a mail-in ballot. In a statement posted to its website, Bucks County said it may need to stop taking applicants "to ensure all applications are processed by the end of the day."

Harvie acknowledged confusion over the state's early voting system.

"When you’re told that, yes, you can go do early voting by someone, and then you show up and you’re told, well, no, you can’t do early voting — you know, voters aren’t sure who to believe," he said.