Oct 8, 2020 4 min read

Pennsylvanians are voting by mail in unprecedented numbers, with nearly 2.5 million applying, according to figures released Wednesday by the commonwealth’s secretary of state.

In the wake of the novel coronavirus statewide, the number of Democrats and others applying for absentee and no-excuse mail-in ballots is slightly more than triple requests from Republicans.

Democrats seeking mail-in ballots totaled 1,628,401 and “others” – meaning independents, members of minor parties or those listing no affiliation, numbered 259,480.

Republicans requesting mail-in ballots statewide were 600,487.

Judging from these numbers, it looks likely that more Republicans than Democrats and others will be showing up to vote in person on Nov. 3.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said Wednesday that the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots has caused her department to change how counties report election-night figures.

Instead of reflecting just in-person voting returns, “We’re going to have a supplemental site … to track on the absentee front,” she said during a Zoom press conference Wednesday. “We’re still working through the details.”

In Washington County, digitized memory cards delivered to the elections office can yield results relatively quickly, but it takes longer to open the double envelopes of absentee and mail-in ballots and prepare them for high-speed optical scanning.

As of Wednesday, 35,575 Washington Countians had requested mail-in ballots, already exceeding the 27,000 requested and 22,000 processed for the June 2 primary.

Democrats requesting mail-in ballots totaled 23,015, while Republicans asked for 9,532. Unaffiliated or minor-party voters accounted for 2,938 mail-in ballots.

Opening mail-in ballots, known as “pre-canvassing,” by state law that took effect in conjunction with the June 2 primary, can’t begin until 7 a.m. on Election Day. In prior elections, mailed ballots couldn’t be counted until after the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Election Day.

State election law changed in conjunction with the 2020 primary, which was originally scheduled for April 28 but was pushed back to June because of the pandemic.

County officials and Democrats in state government have been pushing for the Legislature to move up the mail-in ballot processing period.

And there are still court challenges to a Sept. 17 decision the state Supreme Court made in allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they’re received by county elections offices by Friday, Nov. 6.

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has also sued Boockvar and all Pennsylvania counties in June seeking to outlaw drop boxes or other collection sites that some counties used in the June 2 primary to help gather a record number of mail-in ballots.

In Washington and Greene counties, dropping off ballots in advance and in person basically means a trip to each county’s elections office.

Trump’s campaign also wants to throw out a state law that restricts poll watchers to county residents.

Although there had been no more decisions on the legal front as of noon Wednesday, Boockvar said she hopes the Legislature acts this week, or, at the latest, next week, to lengthen the processing period of mail-in to include days before the Nov. 3 election.

One election-related action the state House has taken was to vote out of committee a Select Committee on Election Integrity with investigative and subpoena powers.

“The Legislature has the opportunity to do a couple of things that would be extremely helpful to running elections in Pennsylvania: allow counties to pre-canvass earlier, and find poll workers,” she said Wednesday.

“There’s a lot of things they could do to run elections in Pennsylvania, make it easier, and that’s what we’re advocating for.”

Department of State voter registration statistics for Washington County as of Monday show the number of Republicans nearly even with the number of Democrats among the 151,115 voters.

Registered Democrats tallied 66,546 while Republicans totaled 66,317. Independents, voters listing no affiliation and members of other parties accounted for 18,252 voters.

For those who want to vote in the Nov. 3 presidential contest, Monday, Oct. 19, is the deadline to register.

The last day to apply for a mail-in ballot is Tuesday, Oct. 27, but Boockvar on Wednesday asked people to attend to these tasks earlier rather than later.