voting

This article is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan reporting project covering local election integrity and voting access. This article is available for reprint under the terms of Votebeat’s republishing policy.

Pennsylvania officials can certify election results that currently show Democrat Joe Biden winning the state by more than 80,000 votes, a federal judge ruled Saturday, dealing President Donald Trump’s campaign another blow in its effort to invalidate the election.

U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, turned down the request for an injunction by President Donald Trump’s campaign, spoiling the incumbent’s hopes of somehow overturning the results of the presidential contest.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Joe Biden edged ever closer Saturday to a victory over President Donald Trump as the long, exacting work of counting votes extended into a fourth day after the election.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania had hundreds of thousands of ballots left to count Thursday, a number that state officials expected to dwindle rapidly as Democrat Joe Biden and President Donald Trump fought to the end for the White House.

“It’s very close in Pennsylvania, there’s no question,” said the state’s election’s chief, Kathy Boockvar. “So that means it’s going to take longer to actually see who the winner is.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Hundreds of Pennsylvania political candidates and their supporters followed vote counting closely Wednesday, watching downballot races that may hinge on the same untallied mail-in and provisional ballots that have delayed the state’s presidential race results.

A single voting machine jammed for just minutes Tuesday morning at a precinct in Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania -- but misleading posts on Facebook and Twitter claimed multiple machines there were down for hours.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Today is the last day in Pennsylvania to register to vote in the Nov. 3 election in which the presidential battleground state is playing a central role in the contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Voter registration in Pennsylvania has already hit a record high in this cycle.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s highest court granted a request Wednesday to wade into a fight over whether counties should count mail-in ballots when a voter’s signature doesn’t necessarily match the one on their registration.

In its brief order, the state Supreme Court said it will decide the matter after a filings deadline in the case on Friday.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — For anxiety over voting and ballot counting in this year’s presidential election, it’s hard to top Pennsylvania.

Election officials in Philadelphia, home to one-fifth of the state’s Democratic voters, have been sued by President Donald Trump’s campaign, blasted by the president as overseeing a place “where bad things happen” and forced to explain security measures after a theft from a warehouse full of election equipment.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — House Republicans in Pennsylvania are dropping plans to fast-track an 11th-hour effort to set up a Republican-majority election panel with subpoena power. It came amid accusations by Democrats that it was an effort to steal the election. Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff said "the muddied waters and misunderstanding" about the intent of the Select Committee on Election Integrity made it clear it's the wrong time. The presidential battleground state is hotly contested by President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's counties are pressing lawmakers and Gov. Tom Wolf to allow them to process mail-in ballots before Election Day in the battleground state as they consider the prospect of waiting until polls open to dig into 3 million envelopes. Allowing counties time to process mail-in ballots before Election Day remained stuck Tuesday in a wider partisan dispute between the Democratic governor and the Republican-controlled Legislature.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has dealt a blow to Republicans in the legal fight over the deadline for mailed ballots in the presidential battleground state. The court rejected without comment Thursday a request by Republicans to put on hold its decision to extend the deadline for receiving and counting mail-in ballots. Republicans are now likely to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block the ruling. The divided Pennsylvania high court last week granted the Democratic Party's request to order an extension of Pennsylvania's Election Day deadline to count mailed ballots.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Nov. 3 presidential contest will test Pennsylvania's ability to handle a massive mail-in vote and, while its high court settled several partisan points of dispute over how to update the state's election law, counties remain unprepared in several important ways. Plus, the legal challenges are not necessarily over.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's highest court has given the Democratic Party a series of victories related to November's presidential election in the battleground state. One of Thursday's decisions was in a lawsuit that sought favorable fixes to glitches and gray areas in the mail-in voting law. The court granted Democrats' request to order a three-day extension of Pennsylvania's Election Day deadline to count mailed-in ballots. It also authorized satellite election offices and drop boxes to head off an avalanche of mail ballots in Philadelphia and its populous suburbs.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — With concerns rising in Pennsylvania that thousands of mail-in ballots will be discarded in the presidential election over technicalities, state officials told counties that they cannot reject a ballot solely because an election official believes a signature doesn't match the signature in the voter's file. The new guidance from Pennsylvania's Department of State also prompted the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh to drop a lawsuit in federal court Monday.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania will pay the cost of postage for voters to mail-in ballots in November’s general election. Officials said Friday that Gov. Tom Wolf's administration plans to use money from federal emergency coronavirus aid to foot the bill. It could run several million dollars to cover 55 cents for millions of ballots. Wolf has made paying for postage a priority as the coronavirus pandemic has unexpectedly fueled high interest in voting by mail.

Tuesday is primary election day in Pennsylvania, which the state postponed from April because of the coronavirus. Besides the date change, this year’s primary will also feel different with potentially longer lines at polling places even though fewer voters are expected to show up. 

Denise Meyer, an election judge in Centre County, said she’ll be working at her precinct in Ferguson Township for the primary, because she feels an obligation.

The deadline to register to vote in the November election is fast approaching.

And while it’s an off year for high-profile races, Pennsylvanians will be deciding a major ballot measure.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pennsylvania's message was clear: The state was taking a big step to keep its elections from being hacked in 2020. Last April, its top election official told counties they had to update their systems. So far, nearly 60% have taken action, with $14.15 million of mostly federal funds helping counties buy brand-new electoral systems.
But there's a problem: Many of these new systems still run on old software that will soon be outdated and more vulnerable to hackers.

As Pennsylvania pushes ahead with plans for new voting machines that produce a paper trail, some counties are concerned about the costs.

The board of the SEDA-Council of Governments, a development agency that serves 11 counties in central Pennsylvania, recently came out against the state’s mandate that all counties get new paper-trail voting machines by 2020.

"The counties just felt that to have this mandated in the timeframe the governor was asking was unrealistic,” said Jeff Snyder, a Clinton County commissioner and the incoming SEDA-COG board president.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — For the Pennsylvania Senate, the election didn't necessarily end at 8:00 p.m. on November 6.
The chamber's Republican majority is questioning the residency qualifications of a newly elected Democrat who flipped a Republican-held Pittsburgh-area seat by a mere 793 votes, injecting tension into a normally quiet December between legislative sessions.

Tuesday (November 6) is Election Day.  The polls in Pennsylvania will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. To find your polling place, and for other helpful information, visit wpsu.org/vote18.

Here are some helpful information and links for Election Day from the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro:

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Latest on the Pennsylvania primary election (all times local):

10:19 p.m.

John Fetterman has won a five-way Democratic Party primary race for lieutenant governor, making Lt. Gov. Mike Stack the first holder of the office to lose in a primary election.

The Braddock mayor's victory in Tuesday's primary election means he will run on a ticket with Gov. Tom Wolf in the fall. Pennsylvania first started allowing lieutenant governors to serve a second term in the 1970s.

Braddock had made a failed bid in 2016 for the U.S. Senate.