While Pennsylvania saw some issues, Allegheny County's ballot counting went smoothly

By Steve Bohnel and Adam Babetski / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Voters experienced bomb threats, voting machine malfunctions and long lines at a number of polling places in Pennsylvania on Tuesday — but Allegheny County’s election was relatively smooth and efficient: The counting warehouse on the North Shore was abuzz with activity and without disruption.

Throughout Tuesday, more than 200 county workers processed mail-in ballots with the help of a machine that opens up to 50,000 envelopes an hour and scanners that process roughly 280 ballots a minute. They worked at long tables in a large room at the warehouse, opening envelopes and eventually feeding each ballot into a scanner to be tabulated.

Throughout the day, county workers were allowed to leave as ballots were processed. They had completed what election administrators have called the “mundane work” of running elections.

As of Wednesday, the results of all of the county’s mail-in ballots — nearly 227,500 — were posted to the county’s election results page, according to county officials. Election officials will meet at the warehouse Friday to process military, overseas and provisional ballots.

County officials said Tuesday morning that 3,788 overseas ballots had been sent and 2,165 had been returned so far; 521 military ballots were sent and 268 returned. The deadline for the county to receive those is Nov. 12. County elections staff estimate that 12,680 provisional ballots were cast.

It’s likely that many hundreds of ballots also remain uncounted from nine precincts in the county. Election officials were still working to gain access to the facilities where ballot machines were stored and locked after the polls closed on Election Day. They aim to release unofficial results from eight of them  Thursday.

About mid-day Tuesday, County Executive Sara Innamorato stopped by the warehouse to observe activities and walked around the tables where pre-canvassing of mail-in ballots was occurring, witnessing democracy in action.

On Wednesday, Ms. Innamorato thanked those workers for their efforts. She also thanked the elections staffers, who worked long hours processing mail-in ballots, running satellite election offices and ballot return sites, and preparing for Election Day.

“County employees processed and tabulated 220,000 mail-in ballots in record time yesterday,” the county executive said in a statement. “Alongside our staff were nearly 7,000 poll workers who helped ensure our neighbors – nearly 500,000 of them - were able to vote securely and without interference in person yesterday. At almost 75% turnout, it was a robust election and I just have to express my gratitude to staff, volunteers, and voters who participated in the process.”

David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research in Washington, D.C., told reporters that having enough funding for staff and state-of-the-art equipment was important to run elections efficiently, as Allegheny County did on Tuesday.

But there is also “administrative efficiency” to consider, Mr. Becker said.

“You need to have the right facilities,” he said. “You need to be able to train your staff. You need to be able to keep your staff on. That's been a challenge in the last four years, as election staff have been threatened and harassed. … And you need to be able to pay expert staff, particularly with technological skills, to be competitive in the marketplace.”

Allegheny County did deal with some minor disruptions Tuesday. In one instance, a judge ordered Moon Area High School – a polling location – to stop testing its fire alarms until all voting was completed. In a separate filing, a judge ordered signs that “falsely portray themselves as public notices from the Pennsylvania Department of State” to be removed from eight locations.

Police responded to an incident of voter intimidation at Roosevelt Elementary School in Carrick Tuesday night involving a middle-age man and two other individuals. The man directed racial slurs at Black voters, according to ​​the judge of elections.

Initially, roughly 30 mail-in ballots were challenged, including two by the county’s Republican Committee on residency grounds, said Sam DeMarco, the county’s GOP chairman and a member of the county’s Board of Elections. But he and Allan J. Opsitnick, an assistant solicitor for the county, said all those challenges had been resolved.

But other jurisdictions around the state were seeing challenges to overseas ballots. Colin Sisk, director of elections and chief registrar for Beaver County, said 125 overseas ballots had been challenged there, and the county board of elections will hold a hearing on them Friday afternoon.

Mr. Sisk said those ballots were challenged because of allegations that the voters were “indefinitely out of the country and they’re not registered to vote under Pennsylvania law.”

But he added that citizens have rights to at least vote in federal elections, an issue that will likely be litigated by attorneys at the hearing Friday.

After Donald Trump’s victory became clear in the early hours Wednesday, court activity ground to a halt. There are currently no outstanding or relevant election-related court cases in Pennsylvania, according to the state court system’s official website.

Mr. Becker told reporters that any challenges to ballots could face an uphill battle, especially since people have waited until after Election Day.

“I've been a broken record on this: the voter lists are public,” Mr. Becker said. “Both campaigns, both candidates, both parties have had them. They're constantly updated … if a candidate or party knew, or should have known, about a residency challenge and didn't do anything about it, they're going to have a really hard time post-election.”