Wolf says Pa election went smoothly, results will take a while
Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday night that Pennsylvania will not have results from the presidential election on Election Night, noting, “These ballots will take more time than in past years.”
Pennsylvania passed legislation more than a year ago that enabled Pennsylvanians to vote by mail-in or early in-person ballot.
“Stay calm, be patient, stay united on election night and in the days ahead,” said Wolf. “Pennsylvania will have a fair election. Every eligible vote will be counted, as it must be.”
Wolf said the state will “fight every effort, as we have in the past, every effort to disrupt the vote count,” noting “free and fair elections are a bedrock of our democracy.”
While voters worried before the election that in-person voting might be marred by violence or intimidation, Kathy Boockvar, secretary of the commonwealth, said voting went smoothly.
“People were concerned about protests, demonstrations, civil unrest, or voter intimidation, and I’m happy to report that we had no reports of violence in any poling places today,” said Boockvar.
She said there were a few reports of voters who felt intimidated, and a male voter accidentally shot himself in Northampton County, but he drove himself to the hospital. There also was a report of a volunteer with Pennsylvania Democrats who was shot by a paintball gun from a moving vehicle. It is under investigation.
Boockvar said the commonwealth’s top priority is “to count every ballot accurately and securely, and as quickly as possible.”
She also said there was some confusion over the use of provisional ballots, which were used in higher numbers because some voters who applied for mail-in ballots but then chose to vote in-person were inadvertently given provisional ballots at the poll instead of voting by the regular system.
Boockvar assured that those votes will still be counted.
Whatever the outcome of the election, Wolf said, Pennsylvanians “will heal our divisions, we will stand together as one Pennsylvania, and we will stand together as one America.”