11:30 a.m., Nov.7: Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the race for president of the United States after The Associated Press called Pennsylvania for Biden Saturday. Kamala Harris becomes the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent elected as vice president.
Allegheny County’s latest tally played a pivotal role in Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral college votes going to Biden. In its latest update the county reported adding 7,253 votes cast to its total, bringing the number to 702,315, of which 5,184 votes went for Biden and 1,893 votes for Trump.
Below: the vote count that caused the AP and the networks to declare Joe Biden the winner. And here’s our tic-toc of Pittsburgh-area election news since Nov. 3: https://t.co/BxpP9YD7Nr pic.twitter.com/JQrx3LJFYZ
— PublicSource (@PublicSourcePA) November 7, 2020
In celebration of Biden’s victory Saturday afternoon, some people gathered in Pittsburgh’s South Side and marched towards the City-County Building in Downtown. Others danced in the streets of Squirrel Hill with signs and flags.
MORE PHOTOS: Pittsburgh erupts in celebrations over Biden’s victory
Scores of people are currently gathering on East Carson Street for an “Every Voice Heard, Every Vote Counted” rally and march. Among them is Michele Feingold, who said she’s “ecstatic” about Biden’s victory. “We worked so hard to bring decency back to this country,” she said. pic.twitter.com/w5fXEgDONj
— Ryan Loew (@ryanloew) November 7, 2020
On Saturday afternoon, Allegheny County announced it had suspended the processing of the remaining ballots until Monday, Nov. 9. In the meantime, the elections division is doing some administrative and research work related to the remaining ballots but there won’t be any additional reporting of vote count until Monday, the county said.
Allegheny County Board of Elections meeting, Nov. 10. The Allegheny County board of elections met Tuesday and voted to accept 2,349 ballots that were cast without a date on them but which were received by Election Day and followed all other guidelines. The board’s Republican member, Samuel DeMarco, voted against the motion because he said it didn’t follow the letter of the law. An Allegheny County lawyer argued that the board’s decisions should err on the side of enfranchasing rather disenfranchising voters and that accepting them was defensible and happening elsewhere.
Separately, DeMarco brought up a concern about people not signing roll books and said it was an important step to prevent fraud, but he did not provide any evidence of how widespread the issue might have been.
Allegheny County update, 10:40 p.m., Nov. 6: As the ballot count continues in Pennsylvania, with a growing Biden’s lead over Trump, Biden won 2,436 votes, compared to 733 for Trump, out of the most recent batch tallied in Allegheny County. About an hour earlier, the county reported the results of a batch in which Biden won 7,300 votes, compared to 1,875 won by Trump. That batch included the remainder of military and overseas ballots and some voters whose initial ballots were incorrectly sent, the county reported.
In all, 691,850 votes have been cast in the election in the county. Operations are closing down for the night and will resume at 9 a.m. Saturday.
The Associated Press has not declared a winner in Pennsylvania yet citing the number of outstanding votes and close margins. As of 11 p.m. Friday, Biden’s lead over Trump was at 28,800 votes in the state.
Allegheny County update, 7:15 p.m., Nov. 6: The county reported the results of 5,345 ballots, with 4,134 going to Biden and 1,076 to Trump. The batch includes ballots that could not be scanned previously and 2/3 of the county’s overseas and military ballots.
The county reported receiving 113 ballots in the mail today, with 64 of them eligible to be counted. In the three days since polls closed, the county received 1,045 mail-in and absentee ballots, with the majority of them — 947 — eligible to be counted.
Once the county finishes processing military and overseas ballots, the county return board will begin processing ballots from the batch incorrectly sent to voters. If the replacement ballot was returned by the voter, the county will process them as typical. If only the incorrect ballot was returned, it will be forwarded to the Return Board.
Pennsylvania now counting provisional ballots, 4 p.m., Nov. 6: With most mail-in and absentee ballots counted, Pennsylvania counties have begun counting provisional ballots, the state said in a press release.
These ballots differ from other in-person ballots because they must be adjudicated individually by county election boards to determine if they can be counted. According to the state, this will be done by confirming the voter was registered to vote in the precinct in which the ballot was cast. If the voter already voted by mail, the ballot will not be counted.
Early this afternoon, Allegheny reported that it had 17,000 provisional ballots but expected the number to grow. At 5 p.m., Allegheny County is also expected to start examining and counting eligible ballots from a batch of 29,000 erroneously mailed mail-in ballots.
Election update, 1 p.m., Nov. 6: Allegheny County’s elections staff is continuing to review and count ballots and has decided to work straight through until 4:30 p.m. without break, according to a county press release.
The county notes that 677,172 votes have been cast in the election overall. The county also received 358 mail-in ballots Thursday that meet criteria to be counted, the county said. Additionally, the county so far has received 3,873 overseas and military ballots. The county reports that it has 17,000 provisional ballots but expects the number to increase.
In a 12:45 p.m. news conference, Philadelphia city officials reported that 40,000 ballots remain to be counted, which could take several days.
Philadelphia City Commissioner Omar Sabir called for patience as the count continues.
“Ignore a lot of the noise that’s going on,” Sabir said. “Allow us to complete the counting process.”
Biden continues to lead Trump, with the margin expanding.
Biden takes the lead. After an early lead by Trump — which didn’t reflect expected mail-in tallies — Biden officially caught up to the president on Friday morning. A win in Pennsylvania would secure the presidency for the Democrats. Votes are still being counted, including a batch that could number up to around 35,000 in Allegheny County. Meanwhile, Biden has also taken the lead in Georgia.
Will Pa. call a winner? The ballot count in Pennsylvania continued into Friday after Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said in an interview on Thursday that the counting of the state’s remaining ballots is ahead of schedule and that the “overwhelming majority” of ballots could be counted Thursday. Pennsylvania — or possibly a combination of Arizona, Georgia or Nevada — is seen as the key to a presidential victory for Biden, who currently leads Trump in electoral votes. The president currently leads in Pennsylvania, though many analysts note that Biden is expected to continue gaining momentum and surpass Trump.
In a Thursday evening press briefing, Boockvar said the state is in the “home stretch” of vote counting and sought to reassure voters that the process is progressing smoothly. “Hundreds of thousands of ballots have been counted so far today. We’re in very good shape, but there’s still some to count,” she said, estimating that several hundred thousand ballots remain to be counted.
Boockvar said the integrity of the election “unparalleled.” Save for an incident several weeks ago when a Luzerne County man tried to apply for a ballot on behalf of his deceased mother, Boockvar said there have been no other known attempts of voter fraud in the state.
While the count of mail-in and standard in-person ballots is progressing, Boockvar said very few provisional ballots have been counted — those are counted last. She declined to give an estimate of the number of provisional ballots cast because not all counties had reported their numbers yet. “The overwhelming majority of ballots will be counted by Friday. I still think we’re ahead of schedule,” Boockvar said.
An update from PA Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar: “Hundreds of thousands of ballots have been counted so far today. We’re in very good shape, but there’s still some to count.” @PublicSourcePA
— Juliette Rihl (@JulietteRihl) November 5, 2020
Why Allegheny County is counting votes Friday: Allegheny County Rich Fitzgerald on Thursday afternoon told the press that Allegheny County’s vote counting process has gone smoothly. “You can ask all parties that have viewed the process,” he said.
He emphasized that the process to count and determine the eligibility of the final 35,413 votes is starting on Friday due to laws and court orders that limit when the counting can begin.
That batch includes 6,800 ballots identified as having a problem such as being damaged in the mail or not having a secrecy envelope. Those ballots will be examined, and either counted or not counted, starting Friday at 9 a.m.
Also included are 29,000 ballots that were erroneously sent to voters. Those ballots must be examined to be sure they are eligible to be included and cannot be counted until Friday at 5 p.m.
Fitzgerald reiterated that the election process is proceeding as normal.
“No election is final until the boards of election, all 67, sign the certification, normally it takes about two to three weeks after Election Day,” he said. “This is a normal process that happens in every election every year.”
Count restarts — after pause — in Philadelphia, Nov. 5: The count of ballots has resumed in Philadelphia, after a brief pause around noon, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Philadelphia elections officials had put a temporary stop on counting votes while trying to accommodate a court order calling for Trump campaign observers to have closer access to view the process.
The legal challenge is among several that the Trump campaign has filed, as the president’s campaign — without evidence — claims electoral malfeasance on behalf of states that Biden is either leading or might make gains in.
Trump attacks Pennsylvania election: After falsely declaring victory in Pennsylvania and challenging the integrity of vote counts in Michigan and Wisconsin, the Trump campaign said it is seeking a temporarily stop to vote counting in Pennsylvania and Michigan. As the ballot counting continues in Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign has complained that it does not have proper access to observe the counting process.
Trump has previously blasted a move by the U.S. Supreme Court not to stop the Pennsylvania from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day, and the campaign has filed to intervene in that case. Without citing evidence, Trump has said counting ballots received after polls closed will lead to voter fraud.
In an evening press conference, Gov. Tom Wolf criticized the campaign’s claims about a lack of transparency as baseless. “Philadelphia has been streaming the processing of ballots. Anybody can get it anywhere in the world so I’m not sure how that equals a lack of transparency,” he said.
Wolf, who has repeatedly pushed back on Trump’s criticism of the state’s election integrity — explained in the press conference that vote tallying is taking more time because of the volume of mail-in ballots, coupled with the fact that the state tallied 9 million new registered voters and Republican-backed restrictions that prevented counties from preparing ballots for Election Day before 7 a.m. on Tuesday.
“I am going to fight like hell to protect the vote of every Pennsylvanian,” Wolf said.
Pennsylvania remains too early to call.
Allegheny County, 11 p.m., Nov. 4: Allegheny County finished scanning of mail-in and absentee ballots and additional in-person precinct results shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday.
The number of ballots cast, as reported by the county, is 675,928, which includes 313,072 mail-in and absentee ballots. Click here to see the latest results for the county.
The county’s Return Board is expected to convene on Friday to evaluate an estimated 35,413 ballots, which include ballots from voters who received incorrect ballots but then were reissued corrected ones.
Results from six precincts — Braddock Hills 02, Homestead 01-01, Pittsburgh 20-13, Pittsburgh 25-01, Shaler 02-05, and Whitehall 09 — will be reported Thursday as results from these precincts were not transmitted from the regional reporting centers on Election Day, the county said.
The county previously reported that 525 ballots postmarked on or before Election Day were received. Another 25 ballots were received from FedEx. Another 12 ballots were postmarked after Election Day, which makes them ineligible to be counted under Pennsylvania’s election rules.
@ORMorrison and I got a chance to peel back the curtains a little on how your mail-in ballots are processed. Joanne Foerster, Allegheny County’s director of performance and analytics walked us through the process.
–@PublicSourcePA pic.twitter.com/NpEycIylDk
— Jay Manning (@_jaymanning) November 4, 2020
Allegheny County, 1 p.m. Nov. 4: Allegheny County received around 500 new ballots in the mail on Wednesday. Those ballots will be counted and added to the total. But the physical ballots will be kept separate, as the state has recommended, in case there is a legal challenge.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined before the election to stop the votes from being counted if received after Election Day. But in their opinions, some conservative judges hinted that they might consider the issue later. The county does not know how many provisional ballots were cast yet and won’t know for several days, according to county communications director Amie Downs.
On Wednesday afternoon, Republican Allegheny County Councilman Samuel DeMarco III told reporters that he didn’t personally think the ballots should be counted until Friday but that he would follow the law. DeMarco, who sits on the county’s Board of Elections, said he thought there were more options than ever to vote in this election and those additional days are unfair to other voters who couldn’t vote.
DeMarco said he didn’t have any worries about fraud at the county elections warehouse but did say he didn’t like how quickly mail-in voting was implemented without additional resources and sufficient guidance. DeMarco said he hadn’t heard of any cases of voter fraud in Allegheny County but was still worried about it. “I have not personally seen any,” DeMarco said.
Allegheny County, 12 p.m. Nov. 4: Allegheny County elections officials were not able to process their mail-in votes as quickly as they had hoped on election night.
The ballots were harder to put through the machines without jamming, according to Downs.
The reason is that the ballots were folded by a machine, which made the crease harder to undo than in the primary, when the ballots had been folded by hand. Many of the ballots were also turned in earlier and were sitting around longer, so those creases deepened.
Although nearly all of the in-person voting totals were reported after a short delay, there were more than 146,000 mail-in votes still to be counted Wednesday morning, and an additional 27,000 mail-in ballots that won’t be counted until Friday. Those voters were sent ballots by a county subcontractor and the county needs to check to make sure each of those votes is counted correctly.
On election night about 80% of the mail-in votes in Allegheny were voting for Joseph Biden and so local Democrats were pointing toward a historic night in Allegheny County after the remaining mail-in ballots are counted.
Mayor Bill Peduto predicted on Twitter that Joseph Biden would add an additional 37,000 votes and win by 145,000 votes. That would be a historic margin, as the last five Democratic presidential candidates have won by between 90,000 and 108,000 votes. If this holds, it would be due to a much larger than normal vote turnout by Democrats, and Trump’s vote total would be similar to what other Republicans have received in the past five elections.
Of the 544,299 votes the county has tabulated on its results website, 54.3% go to Biden and 44.2% go to Trump.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s, 10:30 a.m., Nov. 4: Gov. Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar on Wednesday morning stressed to voters that every vote cast in the state’s election will be counted. “Pennsylvania will have a fair election, and that election will be free of outside influence,” Wold said during a press conference.
The announcement followed premature claims of victory by President Trump Wednesday morning. Trump also said he would take the election to the Supreme Court to stop the vote counting.
Wolf reminded voters that delayed results were expected due to the state’s new mail-in ballot system. “The delay that we see is a sign that the system is working,” he said.
In defending the process, Boockvar called the election “one of the smoothest” presidential elections she’s witnessed.
“We are exactly where we said we would be. We said it was going to take some time to count the mail ballots, and we are approaching 50% of the mail ballots counted, which is great…” she said. “But there’s still millions of ballots left to be counted.”
About 500,000 mail-in ballots have not been returned, according to the state. Boockvar said it is not yet clear how many of those voters instead cast ballots in person or postmarked their ballots by the close of polls, but those numbers will be trackable in the coming days.
Voters can track Pennsylvania’s counting via the state’s dashboard, which will be updated throughout the day.
Pennsylvania and Allegheny County, 6 a.m., Nov. 4: As millions of votes remain uncounted and several key states, including Pennsylvania, are too close to call, Trump made premature claims of victory Wednesday morning and said he would take the election to the Supreme Court to stop the counting.
Wolf tweeted that Pennsylvania still has over 1 million mail-in ballots to count and assured Pennsylvanians that every vote will be counted.
The vote count from Pennsylvania’s 67 counties will take time, as officials and experts cautioned. As of Wednesday morning, over 1.4 million mail-in votes remain to be counted, out of more than 2.5 million mail-ballots cast and entered into the state registry. In total, 5.1 million votes have been counted in the state, including 3.95 million in-person votes and 1.11 million mail-in ballots.
As of 2:45 a.m., Allegheny County stopped scanning ballots in its North Side warehouse. It is expected to resume its operations at 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to Allegheny County spokeswoman Amie Downs. The county still has 146,537 mail-in and absentee ballots to scan. So far, around 173,068 ballots have been tabulated and uploaded to the Allegheny County results page. Around 348,485 mail-in and absentee ballots have been received (413,716 applications for mail-in and absentee ballots were approved).
A third shift of employees began work at 11 p.m. at the Allegheny County Elections Warehouse.
The county around 9:15 p.m. said it was aware that national news outlets are over reporting votes for Trump in Allegheny County, “apparently because of a typo,” a county press release said. “This is not an error on the county’s side. We are trying to reach the source company to ask for them to correct the data.”
Downs said earlier tonight that approximately 20,000 ballots at the county elections warehouse did not contain bar codes and were being manually entered and checked in.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s 9 p.m. briefing: Wolf on Tuesday night called for patience in an election that saw more than 2.5 million Pennsylvania voters cast ballots. While the state’s results could be a deciding factor in which party wins the White House, the count won’t be quick.
“We may not know the results today,” Wolf said during a streamed press conference. “But I encourage all of us to take a deep breath and just be patient.”
The priority, Wolf said, is that the count is fair and accurate. Pennsylvania’s plan to continue accepting mail-in ballots until Friday if they were postmarked before 8 p.m. today has already drawn ire from Trump, who blasted the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday for not blocking that plan.
Despite concerns about possible violence and difficulties related to voting in the pandemic, Boockvar during the briefing said the election has gone relatively smoothly, without widespread problems to report. Wolf characterized any issues reported as on par with a typical election.
Boockvar noted that the delay in counting is in part due to a lack of legislation that would have allowed counties to begin pre-canvassing mail-in ballots before Election Day — an issue that puts Pennsylvania behind others, including the battleground state of Florida. Counties were not permitted to open mail-in ballot envelopes until polls opened this morning.
THREAD: Millions of eyes will be on Pennsylvania today. Follow our team as they embed in the #Allegheny County community to witness an array of voting experiences amid a historic election. The team is spread out across the county. #Election2020
— PublicSource (@PublicSourcePA) November 3, 2020
She emphasized the need for accuracy while acknowledging the magnitude of the race.
“The top priority of course is to count every ballot accurately and securely,” Boockvar said. “And accurately as quickly as humanly possible.”
During a later press briefing, Boockvar confirmed that the line at a York County polling station located in a school was about three hours long. She explained that voting was happening in a small room and it was hard to observe social distancing in a limited space and move voting quickly. She also added that 14 pizza pies were ordered for people who were waiting to vote. And everyone who was in line had voted, she said.
Issues at polls throughout the day
Polls officially closed at 8 p.m., though voters in line at that time were still able to cast ballots. Downs noted in a press release early in the day that there were some complaints about some individuals not wearing masks, concerns about distancing and some arguments at various polling places. According to the county, no action was needed related to the arguments, and reminders have been sent to be sure social distancing is practiced.
Three polling places had a delayed start Tuesday morning, including Pittsburgh 5-5, which could not open because the vehicle of the judge of elections was stolen, and it contained the election suitcase needed to open the polling place. The suitcase, which has been recovered, did not contain any ballots, the county said. Four juveniles are in custody for the theft.
The county also reported that poll worker Brittany Acosta was removed from a voting location on Ellsworth Avenue after other workers said she were “causing a disturbance, taking pictures and video of polling place activities, and looking at voters’ ballots prior to those being scanned,” according to a release from the county. Acosta was reinstated by Election Court Judge John McVay but later resumed the disruptive behavior. She left on her own after the court issued an order for her removal at approximately 7 p.m.
Two poll workers from St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Crafton were held in contempt of court and brought in front of McVay by sheriff’s deputies at approximately 8:15 p.m. after confusion over whether to let an 18-year-old voter cast a ballot. The poll workers claimed his voter identification card was not signed. The court held that the poll workers violated an earlier court order directing the Board of Elections of Crafton to “allow any first time voter to vote upon presentation of a voter identification card.” The voter was able to cast his ballot, and the issue was resolved.
Two other poll workers in Pittsburgh were removed for fighting and left before sheriff’s deputies arrived. A court order was issued to remove two poll watchers in Penn Hills. According to a county press release, those watchers “voluntarily left, but vehemently denied any wrongdoing.”
All ballots at the county elections warehouse are being processed, except for those from voters who received the wrong ballot or ballots that were identified today as needing to be reviewed by elections officials. In mid-October, the county announced that a batch of 28,000 mail-in ballots had mistakenly been sent to the wrong voters. Replacement ballots were sent, and the county said it would review ballots after the election that were inadvertently completed and returned.
What are voters saying?
Pennsylvania’s rightward lean in 2016 helped seal Trump’s presidential victory. In Allegheny County, towns such as Glassport had previously voted for Obama before switching to Trump four years later. How are they voting now? In the lead up to Election Day, we took a look at the differing views, and sometimes familial tensions, that could again influence the race.
On the scene today, views are split.
William Donofrio, voting on his 91st birthday, predicted “a landslide” for Trump. He’s worried that if Trump loses, Biden’s age, or an impeachment driven by his son’s business activities would put Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the Oval Office, “and that’s a tragedy. … She’s a liberal.”
Lifelong Glassport resident Beth Cadman was handing out material for Democratic state Sen. Jim Brewster, yet she also voted for Trump. “I like the man,” Cadman, 59, said of the president. “He’s very smart.”
But Judy Wesolowski is backing Biden, based in part on healthcare, and on wanting a unifier in the White House. “I’ve got an underlying condition, and I’m really concerned about it,” she said. “We need to unite this country. It’s been divided for a long time.”
Also in Glassport, Darius Miller, 36, said he voted for Biden, with criminal justice reform as a key issue.
“Trump had his time,” Miller said.
Underscoring the debate over fracking’s future — a common, though at times muddled, campaign narrative — Dwight Van Natta expressed concern for his livelihood working for a company that ships fracking equipment and other parts. He voted for Trump before heading to his daughter’s 16th birthday party.
“If one of the candidates gets in, I know my job is threatened,” he said.
In Clairton, rejecting divisiveness voters said they saw in Trump’s rhetoric was a common theme.
“We need a leader who is going to heal us, not keep up with this Twitter-fest and the racism thing,” said Tammy Clines, who voted with daughter Brittnii and son Jhared.
Residents there are quick to note that their multi-racial city has not been infected with division — and they want it to stay that way. “I don’t think Trump was a bad president, but at times he needs to shut up,” said Rob Perfetto, who said he was about to cast a vote for Biden.
Christine Mohamed, executive director of CAIR Pittsburgh and a Common Cause Volunteer, stressed the importance of residents having an opportunity to express their views. She’s been answering voter questions in Clairton since 10 a.m.
“I believe that everybody has the right to have their voices heard,” she said. “Whether or not I agree with their personal decisions, we’re Americans first.”
The pandemic has also had an influence, with many voters casting ballots by mail for the first time. But with that comes concern that ballots won’t make it in time.
Shannon Pampena decided to cast a provisional ballot in person because she didn’t receive a confirmation that Allegheny County had received her ballot. “Screw that; I want my vote to count,” the 53-year-old Friendship resident said. Though she is a Republican, she said she voted for Biden.
At the Bloomfield polling location, the line of voters stretched a city block just after polls opened.
Abbie Shoemaker, 37, is serving as an election judge for the first time. “I know with COVID that older folks are susceptible, so I felt it was my duty to step up.”
How much does Pennsylvania matter?
With Pennsylvania again a key battleground state, Biden and Trump have both dotted their campaign calendars events across the Commonwealth — including a stop in Pittsburgh by Biden and Lady Gaga on Monday and a stop in Philadelphia today.
While the candidates are seeking to boost enthusiasm, the state, according to experts, could also become the site of a bitter legal fight.
Trump on Monday evening tweeted vitriol at the U.S. Supreme Court for not halting Pennsylvania’s plan to count mail-in ballots received after Election Day (they must be postmarked by the time polls close). Without citing evidence, the president said the decision — which three conservative justices indicated could be revisited after Election Day — will lead to “rampant and unchecked cheating.”
In response to Trump’s criticism, Gov. Tom Wolf defended the integrity of the state’s process, also on Twitter. “Pennsylvanians will not be intimidated,” Wolf tweeted. “You can watch us count every vote and have a fair election.”
But will Pennsylvania go red or blue?
Recent polls show Biden leading, though with less of a margin than previously. Both campaigns have paths to victory without winning Pennsylvania, but as the New York Times notes, Pennsylvania has the second highest tally of electoral votes of the battleground states, trailing only Florida.
‘Precious’ right to vote
Early in the day, Boockvar has an Election Day message to voters: “The clock is ticking. You have only hours left to exercise your precious rights to vote.”
In a Tuesday morning press conference, Boockvar said 81% of mail-in ballots have been returned statewide. They can still be returned until 8 p.m., and Boockvar on Monday urged voters to do so in person.
While voters still in line when the polls close at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote, state law has no such provision for absentee voters casting a mail-in ballot. Those have to be returned in person before polls closed or postmarked by 8 p.m. and received via mail no later than 5 p.m. on Nov. 6.
State data from Monday shows that mail-in voters are overwhelmingly registered as Democrats, representing roughly two out of every three returned ballots.
Noting that women and communities of color struggled for the right to vote, Boockvar on Tuesday morning said, “Today let’s honor their sacrifices by voting and participating in our great democracy.”
When polls close, statewide election results can be viewed here, with additional information on mail-in ballots available here.
Quarantined voters
Quarantined COVID-19 patients should contact the Allegheny County Elections Division for an emergency absentee ballot, if they were planning to vote in person and now cannot. “If you can’t deliver your own balloting materials, you can assign a designee to do that for you,” Boockvar said in a press release Monday. “And if you can’t find a designee, the law actually requires the county election office to have a sheriff’s deputy or some county official to deliver the balloting materials for the voter.”
Pennsylvania law permits voters to only return their own ballots, with exceptions for those with a disability or who need an emergency absentee ballot, who have designated someone to do so in writing.
