Eight Pa. counties have yet to count outstanding mail-in ballots, while Sec. Boockvar says she doesn’t expect they’ll ‘make or break’ state election results

• Sam Dunklau
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  Sam Dunklau was WITF’s Capitol Bureau Chief from 2020 – 2023.

Be patient: Results of the Nov. 3 election in Pennsylvania, and across the country, likely won’t be known for days. Here’s how WITF’s newsroom is covering the process.

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(Harrisburg) — Several Pennsylvania counties are choosing to separate — but not count — mail-in ballots postmarked on Election Day and arriving through Friday. That’s contrary to guidance from the Department of State.

As of Thursday evening, most of the state’s mail-in ballots have arrived at county election offices and are being counted. The Department of State said any ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive by Friday at 5 p.m. must be counted and separated.

But eight counties say they are waiting to count them. Lancaster, Montour, Snyder, Northumberland, Cumberland, Chester, Lebanon, and Mercer counties all confirmed they are proceeding that way.

Some, like Snyder County Commissioner Joe Kantz, say it’s a way to avoid counting votes twice. In an interview with NPR reporter Barbara Sprunt, Kantz cited how a mail-in voter may have cast a ballot on Election Day because their ballot didn’t arrive in time.

“We can’t make a determination on their provisional ballot until we know for sure if we get their mail-in ballot, which would have precedent,” he said.

Northumberland County Elections Director Nathan Savidge told Sprunt any ballot that has shown up since Tuesday night has been separated, but not counted, in hope of more guidance.

“All we have to do is get the go ahead. We’re just waiting on the green light to scan them into the system,” Savidge said. “I don’t want to sound like I’m disenfranchising people. I’m just waiting on what the state wants us to do.”

Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar says it is possible for counties to both separate and count those ballots as soon as they arrive. On Wednesday, she advised counties to confirm that technological capability with their voting machine vendors.

Lancaster County commissioners said outstanding mail ballots will be counted by early next week in the absence of further guidance. In an email, Chester County election leaders said they will begin counting them on Friday. The others that are not counting yet did not say when their outstanding ballots will be tabulated.

York County is also holding off on counting mail-in ballots received after Nov. 3, according to county spokesman Mark Walters.

The county board of elections’ decision is a response to an October U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed for ballots to be counted three days after Election Day, but which left open the possibility of a future ruling against that decision, Walters said.

Beginning Friday morning at 10 a.m., election workers will count up all provisional ballots, Walters said, adding that he did not know how many provisional ballots York County has this year. In 2016 there were 250 such ballots in York County.

The county has until Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 5 p.m. to have the provisional ballots preliminarily certified, Walters said.

More than 77,000 people cast their votes in York County, a Republican stronghold south of Harrisburg that is also the home of Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. The county received 77,116 mail-in ballots, state data shows. It has counted 75,210 ballots—almost 98 percent of those received. ​

The remaining 1,906 ballots likely have been deemed invalid due to being filled out incorrectly.

“Naked ballots. Ballots that couldn’t be processed,” Walters said. “One guy wrote his name on his ballot. Such was his paranoia about his vote being counted, but in doing so he nullified it.”

Some counties indicated they have not received many ballots since Election Day. Lebanon County sent out 27,500 ballots for voters to cast by mail and received more than 22,000 by Election Day, according to Department of State data. Its election office said 2,500 more ballots have arrived since then.

Boockvar told CNN on Thursday mail-in ballots received after Election Day are not likely to determine the outcome of the election unless the race is “super close.”

“Unless it is super close, I don’t see them making this or breaking this one way or another,” she said.

The Wolf administration has repeatedly said every vote cast in the election must be counted.

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Emily Previti, Julia Agos, Alanna Elder, Anthony Orozco, Rachel McDevitt, and Brett Sholtis contributed reporting to this story.