Mail-in voters should request and return ballots as early as possible to best ensure their votes are counted.
With the Pennsylvania primary in the rearview mirror, county and state elections officials are now pondering improvements as a much more volatile general election looms just a little more than four months away.
Across the state there were similar pleas for more time when November comes — more time for voters to apply for and receive mail-in ballots and more time for counties to begin pre-canvassing ballots, the time-consuming process of simply opening envelopes and organizing them.
“Give us a little space to do the job that we’ve been given,” said Erie County Clerk Douglas Smith. “This is the process that we have so we’re trying to work it the best we can.”
About the same number of Erie County residents (29,670) voted in-person as did by mail (29,559), reported GoErie.com. Smith said there were 14 people working in the elections office on primary day, the most he has ever seen, “and we’re still struggling to move this thing along.”
Erie County’s Board of Elections has passed a resolution asking the state to allow pre-canvassing to begin on the Saturday before the election, three days earlier than the Election Day start currently allowed.
In Bucks County, where there were 78,000 returned mail-in ballots, Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo is part of a task force examining election issues and suggesting changes to state legislators.
DiGirolamo spent 25 years in the state House and said counties need to be allowed to start opening mail-in envelopes at least a week before the election and begin scanning, but not tabulating ballots, on the Monday before the election.