On Election Day 2020, I was recruited into the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s Election Day “war room,” an office of pols managing election data. After a day of monitoring polling data from Democratic field operatives, the polls finally closed.
Everyone was glued to their screens, watching results come in. After some hours of waiting, people started leaving. My ride came, and I left feeling … still. Everyone felt uncertainty. We felt the future of our country was in limbo, a feeling fueled by election conspiracies. That lasted for four days. An election should never drag that long. And it doesn’t have to.
The fix: Pre-processing (aka pre-canvassing)
Forty-three states — but not yet Pennsylvania — have taken a crucial step to speed up their count of mail-in ballots: pre-processing. Pre-processing, or pre-canvassing, allows election officials to examine, sort, and, with some caveats, count mailed-in votes before Election Day.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, examining mail-in ballots includes verifying signatures, comparing identification information, evaluating eligibility, and inspecting voter affidavits. Sorting entails testing voting equipment, removing mail ballots from return envelopes, placing ballots into secure ballot boxes, and replicating damaged ballots. Counting, or tabulating, votes consists of running ballots through tabulation machines to process the votes. Crucially, the tally of that count isn’t released until after the polls close.
“Opportunities to improve the Election Code come around so infrequently that we cannot keep making it worse.” — Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley
The Brennan Center for Justice has touted Michigan for making “the most progress in strengthening its election systems.” Michigan updated its state Constitution to clarify that certifying elections is a mandate, not an option — a response to Trump supporters’ 2020 efforts to stop election officials from certifying elections. They also gave officials the authority to pre-process ballots — opening, verifying, and scanning ballots before Election Day. This is intended to help avoid another “mirage” of early returns like what happened in 2020, when one candidate (Trump) seemed initially to be leading in Michigan before the other candidate (Biden) came out the victor. This also happened in Pennsylvania in 2020, and it’s the sort of election chaos that breeds dangerous conspiracy theories.
Last year, the Bipartisan Policy Center published three pre-processing recommendations: The first was for states to allow, at minimum, seven days for ballot pre-processing. Second, to permit election officials to scan ballots before Election Day. And third, to give voters enough time to correct mistakes on their ballot.
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, told Politico he supports pre-processing, saying, “It is certainly disappointing that the legislature was not able to come together and provide at least a few days of pre-processing … when we go into next year with a higher turnout, and potentially a close margin at the statewide level.” Bluestein continued, “It is certainly going to be a challenge to count all the ballots quickly.”
Similarly, Bucks County Commissioner Robert Harvie told Spotlight PA that he and other Bucks County commissioners “have really been ringing the bell on this since after the primary in 2020, since we saw how taxing it has been on staff to get everything done in a timeline that everyone is accustomed to … It just became obvious that we’re not going to be able to do that if we have to start at 7am on Election Day.”
Adding to the choir, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania has pre-processing measures on their 2023 county government priorities list. If the people responsible for administering elections say pre-processing is necessary to do their jobs efficiently, why hasn’t it happened already?
A partisan stalemate
Earlier this year, Pennsylvania State Representative Scott Conklin, a Democrat from Centre County, introduced legislation to give counties seven days for pre-processing, to give voters up to 11 days before the election to request a mail-in ballot, and to require counties to notify voters of errors like missing signatures on their ballot.
Conklin’s bill passed the House State Government Committee (which Conklin chairs) and is now on the House floor. But House Republicans oppose it. When the bill was heard in committee, Representative Brad Roae, a Crawford County Republican, said, “I look at this legislation as a solution in search of a problem” because elections since the 2020 presidential election have been called quickly. That glosses over recurrent low turnout in non-presidential elections. Of course elections since 2020 have been called quickly: There have been fewer votes to count.
Our election officials need to have the necessary tools to handle the influx of votes. Especially in Pennsylvania.
A different bill about changing the 2024 primary election date passed the Senate and went to the House in October. But it was muddled by amendments that tacked on pre-processing and voter ID. It was so rushed that proponents of pre-processing couldn’t even support it. Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley, a Democrat, said it “is well-meaning but not well written … It gives election officials very little and adds a ton of extra work [to] our plate. I urge everyone to vote against it. Opportunities to improve the Election Code come around so infrequently that we cannot keep making it worse.”
We need our General Assembly to move beyond partisan politics and meet the needs of County Commissioners who actually have to deal with the realities of running large elections. Next year is a presidential election year. That, coupled with the reemergence of Donald Trump, will result in a historic race with abundant turnout. Our election officials need to have the necessary tools to handle the influx of votes. Especially in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is a battleground state that could turn the tides of the election. The pace of our results needs to be swift to accommodate that reality. Lest we thrust the country into 2020-esque angst that led to conspiracy theories about why the count took so long. In high-stakes elections, citizens need resolve and decisive results as soon as possible.
Pre-processing won’t guarantee same-day results because many people submit their mail-in ballots on the day of the election, and others are postmarked by Election Day but received after Election Day. But pre-processing can hasten the count in tangible ways that must rise above partisan games.
Jemille Q. Duncan is a public policy professional, columnist, and Gates Scholar at Swarthmore College.
This article is an updated version of a post Duncan wrote in 2023.
