Under pressure from a Republican lawsuit, Philadelphia officials decided to reinstate a time-consuming process meant to prevent double voting, a move that is expected to delay the city’s ability to report a final tally — perhaps by a matter of days.
The move comes as election officials in Pennsylvania and other swing states warn that results of tight races may not be known on election night. The officials have preemptively pushed back against claims — such as those wielded by President Donald Trump after the 2020 election — that delays are a sign of fraud or nefarious activity.
Philadelphia leaders on Tuesday emphasized that they were only taking the additional step that could slow the process because of Republican litigation. “I want to make very clear that when there are conversations that occur later this evening about whether or not Philadelphia has counted all of their ballots, that the reasons some ballots will not be counted is because Republican attorneys targeted Philadelphia — and only Philadelphia — in trying to force us to do a procedure that no other county does,” City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, said Tuesday at a public meeting of the election board.
Poll book reconciliation is not required by state law, according to court records. And most counties don’t do it. But late last month, the Republican-led organization known as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections — which includes strategist Karl Rove as a founder and former attorney general William P. Barr on its board, — backed aIn a statement, the group took credit for persuading the city to change its stance.“Any duplicate vote undermines the integrity of the system.
City officials argued that the reconciliation process was labor- and time-intensive and no longer needed given other improved procedures to prevent double-voting and voters’ growing familiarity with mail ballots. In the past three elections, the reconciliation process has found zero double votes, court records show.City officials also said they wanted to eliminate the process to comply with a new state law that provided funding to improve election administration. Philadelphia received $5.
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