Pennsylvania presidential race: Ballot count continues, as secretary of state deflects Republican call to resign

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania moved into the national election spotlight overnight as massive numbers of mail-in ballots and disagreements on their handling made it unclear when a count would be finished and which presidential candidate might win the state’s potentially decisive 20 electoral votes.

The official in charge of Pennsylvania’s vote count, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, said Tuesday’s live election went well. And despite the need to count an unprecedented 2.5 million-plus mail-in ballots, she said she expected the overwhelming majority of votes to be counted in a few days.

But top Republicans in the state Senate late Tuesday called for Boockvar’s immediate resignation, saying she had “fundamentally altered” the conduct of the state election by giving “constantly changing guidance” to counties.

Boockvar denied the accusations and declined to resign. After midnight, Gov. Tom Wolf issued a statement of support, saying the Republicans’ accusations against Boockvar were “a partisan attack on Pennsylvania’s elections and our votes.”

The uncounted mail-in ballots and legal challenges promised to make Wednesday a long day for Pennsylvanians following the close presidential race and a host of other undecided major races in the state, including for several congressional seats, statewide officers and the legislature.

As of Wednesday morning, Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes were the most of any state yet to be called by The Associated Press.

It appeared it might take days to know the Pennsylvania winner in the contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

“What’s most important is that we have accurate results and that every vote is counted, even if that takes a little longer,” Wolf said late Tuesday.

Several lawsuits involving various aspects of the Pennsylvania count were active Wednesday morning. And a huge number of mail-in ballots remained uncounted in Philadelphia.

Boockvar said that in their call for her to resign, state Sens. Joe Scarnati and Jake Corman ― respectively, the Senate President Pro Tempore and the Majority Leader ― mischaracterized her instructions to county officials on handling mail-in ballots that arrive after polls closed Tuesday.

The Republicans said Boockvar contradicted the Election Code and state and U.S. supreme courts in her instructions, but Boockvar said her instructions were to separate the ballots that arrived after 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Pennsylvania: President

Candidate

votes

3,022,405

54.5%

Joe Biden (Dem)

2,460,669

44.4%

Jo Jorgensen (Lib)

65,016

1.2%

78% of vote

Republicans have mounted a challenge to the state Supreme Court’s ruling that ballots received for up to three days after in-person voting ends may be counted. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn that decision before the election and instructed state officials to ensure those ballots were kept separately from others.

In an 11 p.m. news conference, Boockvar dismissed Scarnati and Corman’s call for her to resign and suggested it is they who should resign for preventing mail-in ballots from being counted sooner.

“They don’t like the late counting of ballots because they don’t like anything that allows more eligible voters to be enfranchised,” Boockvar said.

Commonwealth Court set the stage for action in another challenge to the state’s recently enacted mail-in ballot system Wednesday with a hearing in a case brought by central Pennsylvania Republican House candidate Joseph D. Hamm, western Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly and others.

The suit claims Boockvar violated state law and a ruling of the state Supreme Court by directing elections officials to notify voters whose mail-in ballots had been rejected. The court ordered a status conference by telephone at 1:30 p.m.

Earlier Tuesday, Boockvar said there were no reports of major or widespread problems at the polls.

Noting it was only the second election since the state deployed new secure voting systems and allowed residents to vote by mail, Boockvar said the election went “remarkably smoothly.”

State department officials answered 12,000 calls from voters and poll workers but encountered mostly routine issues. Some counties reported voting places opening late or lines at polls. There was also confusion in some places over when voters were required to use provisional ballots, she said.

There were a few incidents of voter intimidation, but those were resolved with calls to county election officials, she said.

As the final minutes of in-person voting ticked past, Gov. Tom Wolf urged Pennsylvanians to be patient as election officials tally millions of ballots cast by mail and in person in a process that could last for days.

“Counting that tremendous number of ballots will take more time than we are used to. We may not know the results today,” Wolf said in a video Tuesday evening. “But I encourage all of us to take a deep breath and be patient. What is most important is that we have accurate results, even if it takes a little longer.”

The state’s voters were poised to play a crucial and perhaps decisive role in choosing the next president, with the election being carried out against the backdrop of a pandemic and the potential for a drawn-out legal fight over late-arriving mail-in ballots.

Muhlenberg College political science professor Chris Borick said Pennsylvania’s role in the presidential race wouldn’t be clear until votes were tallied in other battleground states such as North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, where President Donald Trump held leads Tuesday night.

That’s also likely to determine how vigorously the Republican Party pursues challenges to the state’s counting of ballots received in the three days after the election.

“If Pennsylvania looks like it’s going to decide this, those court cases will flow freely,” Borick said.

But G. Terry Madonna, professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, said it’s likely the results in Pennsylvania and any battleground state where the margin is less than 1% or 2% of the vote will be challenged.

“In some respects, we’re in uncharted territory. This election was perhaps the most contentious bitterest in American history,” he said.

Mail-in ballots received by Tuesday morning included more than 1.6 million from Democrats, 586,336 from Republicans and 278,393 from independent voters and others.

That means about 81% of mail-in ballot requests generated actual returned ballots. That, Boockvar said, is a “very good percentage” and tops the 80% figure achieved in the June 2 primary election and the historical range of 70%-80%.

Boockvar said the overwhelming majority of the 2.5 million-plus mail ballots received by Tuesday morning will be counted within a few days.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Postal Service to conduct sweeps of postal processing facilities in parts of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Texas, Florida and Arizona to identify and deliver ballots. That included the Postal Service’s central Pennsylvania region, which includes the Lehigh Valley.

The Postal Service late Tuesday filed a response saying that it could not accelerate its inspection process to satisfy U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan’s order for the sweeps to happen between by 3 p.m., but that inspectors had cleared facilities of election mail Tuesday morning and would be present Tuesday night to identify any ballots that remained and deliver them as “expeditiously as possible.”

As for Election Day issues, Deputy Secretary Jonathan Marks said the main problems were “typical” ones, like polling places opening late or political signs being placed too close to voting rooms. One precinct in Luzerne County, he said, reported some issues with voting machines.

Separately, Marks said there was one allegation in Philadelphia that a poll watcher was prevented from entering a polling place.

In recent days, seven mostly small Pennsylvania counties indicated they would not count mail-in ballots on Election Day, but would wait until afterward.

Boockvar previously said her department would urge those counties to start the work Election Day. Tuesday morning, she said at least some of them still intended to wait. She said they represented only a “tiny fraction” of votes statewide and would not affect the timing of the end of overall counting.

Meanwhile, Trump’s reelection campaign has signaled it might pursue a legal strategy of trying to prevent Pennsylvania from counting mailed ballots that are received in the three days after the election.

Boockvar said that was one reason the state urged mail-in voters to get their ballots in early. Given the possibility of legal action, counties were ordered to segregate mail-in ballots that arrive after 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Boockvar noted it was impossible to know how many mail-in ballots would come in between 8 p.m. Tuesday and Friday.

“Until we know what those numbers are, it is hard to know exactly what the impact would be,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.