Why it’s taking so long to count votes in Pennsylvania’s Senate race
The recount of Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary formally begins Friday, but in Philadelphia, officials are still figuring out which ballots should qualify in the first place.
Three city commissioners – two Democrats and one Republican – are set to examine 71 provisional ballots cast in the GOP primary.
These are ballots that may be cast by an ineligible voter or lack an accompanying signature. Case by case, the three-member commission will judge whether the vote should be added to the tally or be tossed.
“The ballots need to be organized, and looked up, to find out if they’re eligible voters or if they’re voters who went to the wrong polling place,” said Nick Custodio, the city’s deputy commissioner. “We have to determine what races they were eligible for. All of that takes some time.”
Seventy-one votes usually wouldn’t matter in a Senate primary with more than 1.3 million participants. But given the 900-vote difference between celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz and hedge fund manager Dave McCormick in their still unresolved contest, the fate of each ballot takes on a heightened significance.
A memo from Oz’s campaign on Friday noted while a few thousand Republican ballots remain to be counted statewide, “historically in Pennsylvania, automatic recounts have never resulted in a change in the outcome of the election.”
Nonetheless, the slow-rolling process is a reminder that when a race is extremely close in Pennsylvania, it’s almost guaranteed to take a few weeks to figure out.
The reason is largely due to a state law that prevents county election officials from handling any ballot before Election Day, creating a voluminous backlog once same-day voting adds to the pile of early, absentee and mail-in votes.
“All the stuff other states have done two weeks before Election Day, we’re still doing two days after the election. Pennsylvania law does not facilitate quick counting,” said Custodio.
But the delay is also the result of a system in a large state made up of 67 counties that proceed at various speeds, depending on size, staffing, efficiency and unintentional errors.
In Centre County – where roughly 25,000 Republicans votes were cast – officials finalized its totals on Tuesday. It was waiting on only six military and overseas ballots and had to review about five dozen questionable provisional ballots.
“During the May 24th [Board of Elections] meeting the 61 no date or issue date ballots were reviewed and counted. Out of those 61 ballots, 58 were counted,” said Beth Lechman, the director of elections in Centre County.
Philadelphia is only dealing with a total of 28,000 Republican ballots, but it also has more than 200,000 Democratic votes to process. Centre County had just 22,000 Democratic ballots to wade through.
In other words if the Democratic Senate primary had ended up being tight, the state would most likely still be waiting on the city of Brotherly Love.
In Lancaster County, a printing error forced officials to re-mark a trove of ballots, which took two extra days. Christa Miller, the chief clerk of elections there, said a law allowing her staff to handle early ballots before primary day arrived would have put them ahead of the game.
“If we had pre-canvassing time we would be allowed to open to mail ballots before Election Day as other states are able to do,” she said.
But even with faster-counting provisions and flawless election execution, the Oz-McCormick race still wouldn’t be resolved by now, given the state law of a 0.5% margin triggering an automatic recount.
During this second round of vote counting, counties will start and finish at different times.
Lancaster County will begin its second look at ballots on Tuesday; Centre County will start Wednesday with the goal of finishing on Thursday evening.
In Philadelphia, first things first: getting through provisionals on Friday.
“We’re trying to figure out what day we’re going to start the recount,” Custodio said.
No matter when a county starts, its results have to be submitted to the secretary of state by noon on June 8, which is exactly five months from the general election.
