Pennsylvania Democrats have warned the state’s residents that they should expect “delays” in the counting of their votes in the midterm elections.
The warning comes after Democrat officials in the state sent out 240,000 unverified ballots in the mail.
Voters have now been told to expect “delays” just one day after 15 Pennsylvania House Republicans sent a letter to acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman, a Democrat, demanding to know why 240,000 unverified ballots had been mailed out to voters.
The lawmakers note that “according to the law,” the ballots must now “be set aside and not counted for the 2022 General Election unless the voter produces lD.”
Chapman responded by revealing that there will likely be delays in posting the results after the midterm elections.
“It’s really important for us to get accurate information about the election process in Pennsylvania,” Chapman said during a virtual conference.
She continued by claiming it would likely take “several days” to count and certify the votes.
“So voters and the public know that when there are delays in counting, it doesn’t mean that there’s anything nefarious happening,” Chapman said.
“It’s just what the law is in Pennsylvania.”
According to Chapman, the delays would be attributed to poll workers not being able to pre-canvas or count mail-in ballots prior to election day.
She also encouraged voters to go ahead and send in their ballots.
However, the advice is contrary to Republican messaging, which urges voters to hold onto their mail-in ballots and turn them in to their local board of elections on election day.
Yet Chapman insists that this advice said could (somehow) cause voters to become disenfranchised.
“We have heard that there’s messaging out there in Pennsylvania, as far as instructing voters to hold onto their mail-in ballots,” she said.
“As part of our voter education campaign, we encourage voters to request that mail-in ballot now and return it as soon as possible.
“We don’t want voters to delay.”
Chapman took the opportunity to convey concerns she says stem from “misinformation” – threats to interrupt voting and calls to delay the sending of mail-in ballots.
According to Lehigh Valley News:
While she didn’t detail a specific incident, Chapman said there have been reports of threats aimed at the voting process throughout the state. She promised that her office has worked to investigate any threat made toward a free and fair election.
“Since I’ve been in office in January, we have constantly met with the FBI and Homeland Security just to talk through what the current threat landscape is and tools that we can give our counties to make sure that they have physical security protection as well as cyber security protection,” she said.
“So it’s been great to partner with both the federal and state law enforcement organizations. We are in constant communication with them and it’s a situation that we are monitoring,” Chapman added.
According to Chapman, over 1.2 million mail-in ballots have been requested across the state, and 43% – or 556,000, have been returned.
So does that mean that nearly 25% of mail-in ballots sent out were unverified?
