Pa. Secretary of State: Election will not be called by Tuesday

The results of the election will not be called Tuesday night — and that’s no different from previous years, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar reiterated Monday morning.

“It takes time for votes to be counted,” said Boockvar. “Elections are never called – they’re never finished on election night, and certainly we’ve never had 2.5 to 3 million mail ballots to count before.”

With more than 2.4 million mail ballots received as of Monday, Boockvar expects the majority of votes to be counted by this Friday, acknowledging that the deadline for returning absentee ballots for military service members has always been one week after the election. The deadline for certifying election results is Nov. 23.

Media outlets normally predict the final results based on the number of precincts reporting and the percentage of total ballots counted. Those determinations are made only when one candidate has received so many votes that another candidate would not realistically be able to close the gap.

But with such a massive influx of ballots received by mail this year — amounting to about 39% of 2016’s total voter turnout — making those predictions and calling the race will be much more slow-going. The state has received roughly 10 times as many mail ballots this year compared to 2016, Boockvar said, and mail ballots tend to take longer to process, according to The New York Times.

Elections officials in seven Pennsylvania counties — Beaver, Cumberland, Franklin, Greene, Juniata, Mercer and Montour — have said they would not start counting mail-in ballots until Wednesday morning. This is a move Boockvar said was “disappointing,” but she said the decision would not affect the state’s overall speed in tallying votes and coming up with a final result for the presidential race. Counties operating with this policy, she said, are a “tiny fraction” of the more than 2.5 million mail ballots in Pennsylvania.

“I wish that they were not waiting to count their mail ballots and I’ve encouraged them directly to do so, but they seem to be set in that decision,” she said.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that no ballots received or counted after Nov. 3 should count toward the election result, despite the argument having no basis in actual elections processes — even in normal years.

“The Election should end on November 3rd., not weeks later!” he tweeted on Friday. “Hopefully, the few states remaining that want to take a lot of time after Nov. 3 to count ballots, that won’t be allowed by the various courts.”

Boockvar said the Department of State would do its best to counter any false claims of victory that come before the ballots are fully counted. There are also no legal avenues that either candidate can take to make elections officials stop the counting, Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions Jonathan Marks said.

“We will do everything in our power — legally, communications-wise — to counter any false claims,” Boockvar said. “There’s literally no basis in the law, whatsoever, for somebody other than us, the Department of State, to certify the results of an election. And that’s not done officially until Nov. 23.”

Boockvar provided additional guidance for residents planning to vote in person Tuesday, including the encouraged use of masks and social distancing. She asked voters who still have not returned their mail-in ballots to drop them off at an elections office or ballot box today — they must be received by 8 p.m. tomorrow, she said. Residents who applied for but never received their mail-in ballots can still vote in-person on Tuesday, using a provisional ballot.