- Oct 17, 2011
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Pennsylvania presidential election results could again take days to count
Republicans in the state Senate refused to change the law and allow mail-in votes to be counted ahead of Election Day, despite widespread calls for change.When the polls closed on election night in 2020, President Donald Trump appeared to be winning Pennsylvania. But over the next several days, as officials counted mail-in ballots, his lead shrunk and then disappeared. By Saturday, Joe Biden was the clear winner of Pennsylvania — and, with it, the presidency.
The protracted counting process left a days-long vacuum that Trumpfilled with demands to stop counting the ballots while he was still ahead, declaring victory in Pennsylvania and building the false narrative that the mail-in votes were fraudulent. It became a core part of the false narrative that helped propel Trump’s “Stop the Steal” crusade and spurred election denialism among his allies and supporters that has continued to this day.
The delay was caused by a quirk of Pennsylvania’s election law, which forbids the opening of mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. on the day of the election. The narrow Election Day vote margins in 2020 coupled with the unprecedented number of people voting by mail because of the pandemic created a massive backlog and left election officials racing to finish the count.
[While the pandemic is not significantly at play, this means it is] likely to again take several days to announce this year’s winner, alarming state election officials who worry the delay will cause confusion, deteriorate trust in the process and make election workers targets for harassment.
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One might well ask:
But since the RNC strategy is election lawfare and confusion, the answer turns out to be no.
