Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt held the fourth in a series of daily media briefings leading up to the Nov. 5 general election on Thursday which focused on when results of Tuesday’s election can be expected.
Schmidt explained the reasons why Pennsylvania’s results may not be known on election night.
“Counting millions of ballots takes time. For every single vote cast in this election, there will be a voter-verified paper ballot that election officials need to securely handle and count,” Schmidt said. “Predicting exactly when Pennsylvania will have unofficial results that show a clear winner is just not possible. Pennsylvania has never had final results on election night, regardless of whether media outlets have announced winners on that night or at a later date.
“Ultimately, it comes down to how close any race is. The closer the race, the longer it takes to know who won and who lost,” Schmidt added.
The people doing the hard work of administering this election and making democracy happen are your neighbors at your polling place and professional civil servants at the county level, and they deserve our thanks, our respect and our patience, Schmidt said.
