This year, any registered Pennsylvania voter can request an absentee ballot
Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar addressed the issue of touchscreen voting and contagious disease while standing beside a newly installed dispenser of sanitizing wipes in the Courthouse Square office building in Washington during a visit in early March.
Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter
“You are the people who turn the wheel of democracy,” Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told a group of precinct-level election board members Wednesday as they were trained in the use of new voting machines.
Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar during a visit to Washington County earlier this year
Anyone who is leery of catching a disease from someone who previously touched a screen or scanner during the voting process has, for the first time in Pennsylvania, an alternative, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar emphasized during a swing through Washington County.
Or perhaps the new coronavirus has nothing to do with a voter’s choice. This “no-excuse” vote-by-mail might be the preferred method for someone who’s an emergency responder or is juggling three jobs and just can’t make it to the polls. Or maybe someone doesn’t like elbowing his or her way through a gaggle of people handing out candidate literature.
Boockvar’s visit to Washington and Beaver counties happened to coincide Wednesday with the World Health Organization declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.
When Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law Act 77 in late October, it was the first major update of the state Election Code in more than 80 years. Everyone knew 2020 would be a presidential election year. But no one had any idea that sanitizing voting equipment or holding mass gatherings would become public health issues.
But Boockvar stressed that because COVID-19 is a strain of coronavirus that has never before appeared in humans, no one can predict its ebb or flow in Pennsylvania by the time the April 28 primary – or the Nov. 3 general election – arrives, and possible state funding of sanitizing equipment for voting equipment is a topic that is still being discussed.
In an interview with the Observer-Reporter editorial board, she described the two types of requests for mail-in ballots as “parallel lines” that can be accomplished online at www.votespa.com.
A voter can choose online the following options: to apply as a military or overseas civilian; as someone who will be absent from his or her municipality, or because he or she has an illness or physical disability. If the voter falls in none of those categories, he or she can still apply.
Boockvar said some members of the Legislature didn’t think the absentee ballot process could be changed without a constitutional amendment, so, as a compromise, the no-excuse option was instead added.
Here’s a timeline for the upcoming primary:
- Monday, April 13, is the last day to register to vote.
- Tuesday, April 21, is the last day to apply for an absentee ballot.
- Tuesday, April 28, at 8 p.m., the same time the polls close, is the latest an absentee ballot can be returned to the county elections office.
And here’s a wrinkle: if someone who requests an absentee ballot shows up a polling place, he or she will not allowed to vote by machine, but will have to fill out a provisional ballot. Although provisional ballots are to contain a security envelope to ensure secrecy, provisional voters are named on an outer envelope to make sure people are not trying to vote twice.
From Feb. 11, the first day that ballot requests could be made via the website, through Wednesday, there have been 63,000 applications both online and on paper statewide.
“Forty-three thousand of those were online, which is amazing, considering we just started the online application last year,” Boockvar said. “But it shows you that’s where the demand is.”
Before her discussion with the editorial board, Boockvar attended one of many training sessions for poll workers held by Washington County to introduce voting machines with a paper trail and scanners.
She thanked the 63 trainees, telling them, “You are the people who turn the wheel of democracy.”