Across the commonwealth Monday, election workers in 67 counties were preparing for midterm elections that will decide the balance of power in the state and federal governments for the next two years.
Pennsylvania has been in the national spotlight in the weeks leading up to midterms, with the election for governor, four highly competitive congressional races, and nearly 250 state legislative seats on the ballot.
As the Trump administration has filed lawsuits to intervene in other states’ elections, cracked down on a small number of cases involving noncitizen voting and pursued detailed state voter rolls earlier this year, voting rights watchdogs have been on the lookout for any potential disruptions.
Despite efforts to improve ballot access and security, voters are wary for a variety of reasons that depend on their political orientation, said Committee of 70 President & CEO Lauren Cristella.
“There’s probably more questioning about the integrity of our elections, and people just don’t know what to believe or where to get their information or (whether) what they’re seeing is true,” Cristella said.
The Trump administration sued in Alaska to set aside election results if incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan loses the state’s ranked-choice election because another candidate by the same name is on the ballot. A federal judge on Sunday dismissed that lawsuit and the administration said it will appeal.
Mail In Ballot Box
Credit: Bucks County
In California, the administration took its fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. But, the court denied the administration’s effort to block officials from counting mail-in ballots from 20,000 people who federal officials allege are likely noncitizens who are ineligible to vote.
Election officials in two of the four Pennsylvania counties where the U.S. Department of Justice is sending election monitors Tuesday say that’s not unusual.
The DOJ sent monitors to Luzerne County in 2022 and 2024. And organizations like political parties, campaigns and civil rights groups also use poll watchers.
“Our voters should know that their vote is safe, and the process is transparent and fair, and not to have any fears if they go to the polls,” Luzerne County Manager Romilda Crocamo said. “We’re not allowing monitors into the polling places, whether it’s the ACLU or the DOJ. Once you’re outside of the polling place, if they ask you questions, you have to make a choice of whether you’re going to answer those questions or not.”
Lehigh County is also expecting DOJ poll monitors this year, and county Director of Elections Mike Paston said the only difference is the number of observers will be greater. There will be eight federal observers working in pairs or trios across the county’s 158 precincts.
“It’s not the first time we’ve had monitors, probably won’t be the last,” said Paston. “There’s no reason, from what they’ve said and done, there’s no reason to think their motives are anything but aboveboard and normal.”
Election monitors are required to stay away from the entrances to polling stations and may not be armed. They’re not allowed to question voters entering the polling place but may question voters leaving the polls.
“The level of preparation that has gone into this election is quite high. Perhaps that’s why we’re hearing of so few problems,” said League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Executive Director Amy Widestrom, who was a political science professor at Arcadia University prior to taking her current role three years ago. “It’s really quiet. I hope it stays quiet”…today.
Widestrom said counties and non-partisan organizations like the League have also worked to recruit more poll and canvassing monitors, in addition to poll workers.
“Voters are paying attention. They seem to be engaged,” said Widestrom, pointing to a higher mail-in ballot return rate (83 percent as of Monday).
The flip side of that is vitriol against county election workers.
“The demagoguery against election officials – it’s probably the worst I’ve seen since 2020, from both sides,” Lycoming County Election Director Forrest Lehman said. “We’ve got the right-leaning sphere out there accusing election officials (of) harboring non-citizen voters. DOJ is sending threatening letters out to state officials, threatening to prosecute them. And then on the left-leaning side, we’ve got them accusing election officials of voter suppression at the drop of a hat on issues like ballot curing and drop boxes.”
Trump also signed an executive order in March that would have required the postal service to block delivery of mail ballots to voters not on lists submitted by state election officials. The U.S. Supreme Court in September upheld a lower court’s decision freezing the restrictions.
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As that requirement was looming, officials in some counties in the state took steps to give voters more alternatives to requesting and submitting ballots through the mail. While Pennsylvania does not have true early voting, many counties allow voters to obtain a mail ballot “on demand,” complete it and return it in the same location ahead of Election Day.
Bucks County spokesperson Jim O’Malley said the Board of Elections added four locations for the county’s 487,000 registered voters to request on-demand mail ballots, bringing the total to seven.
“The county wanted to do this to expand access for folks but also to make it more convenient,” O’Malley said, noting officials have provided more than 4,500 on-demand ballots.
The new locations are at the three campuses of Bucks County Community College, in the southern, central and northern parts of the county, plus the Warminster Township public library. Previously, voters had to visit one of the county offices in Doylestown, Warminster or Quakertown.
Lehigh added five drop boxes for ballots this cycle and now has ten options for voters, Paston said.
“During the summer there was a lot of distrust (with) the post office and what they may or may not do. That’s gone away and, actually, the post office is very cooperative,” said Paston. “But during that period, we decided to increase the boxes for people who were concerned about mailing their ballot back and didn’t want to vote in person.”
In Chester County on Monday, the district attorney’s office announced initial testing by the FBI determined a mail-in ballot with a foreign object inside the envelope flagged last week by an election worker is not hazardous. The discovery caused a county office building where ballots are processed to be locked down briefly Friday.
For election workers across the commonwealth, preparing for the unexpected is part of business as usual.
Dauphin County Commissioner Justin Douglas, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination to run for Congress in the 10th District this spring, said part of the work includes running tabletop exercises where staff from each department with a role in Election Day work together to gameplan responses to a variety of scenarios.
They game out what would happen if there’s snow on election day, if a polling place loses power or runs out of paper ballots, or if there’s an issue with a voting machine. And plans have been put in place to respond to such issues quickly.
This year, Douglas said, they also ran through what might happen if the federal government gets involved.
“We talked through what our channels of communication would be in that particular case, and have a plan,” he said. “But that’s kind of internally what happens with every election. And, obviously, with midterm and presidential elections there’s just a lot more focus and attention.”
According to York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler, the days and hours before the election are all about ensuring everything is in place after months of planning.
“There’s certainly a lot of flurry,” she said. “We had to have the machines delivered to the polling locations, we have materials that need to be prepared for the judge of elections — ballots, folders, markers, all those types of things. We had to prepare the poll books for the polling locations. That’s all the election day prep.”
But the county, she said, is in good shape, and most of that planning will never be noticed by voters.
County staff Wheeler called “rovers” will be standing by in cars with backup supplies in case a polling place runs out. Others will be counting mail-in ballots. And staff from county departments like Information Technology, Emergency Preparedness, and the Sheriff’s Office will be ready to respond if there are issues.
“We pride ourselves in providing good customer service to voters,” Wheeler said. “We want the voter to have a positive experience at their polling location.”
Polls in Pennsylvania will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Any voter who is in line before polls close will be allowed to vote.
Mail-in ballots that haven’t been returned must be dropped off at a return location in their county. The Department of State’s website has information on where that is in each county.
Note: The above story is republished with permission under Creative Commons License 4.0.