Some Reflections on the Last Day of Early Voting in Philly

October 30, 2024

In-person voting is over in Pennsylvania until Tuesday, when every registered voter who has not already voted can show up at the polls and cast a ballot. I was on voter protection duty in Hestonville yesterday. The satellite elections office for the 4th Council District resides in a strip mall below a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in this North Philadelphia neighborhood. I arrived after the office had opened as I underestimated how long the combination walk-trolley commute would take me, but by the time I got there only a few people were waiting in line. It seemed to be taking longer to move through the line than it should, but then I discovered that there was a wait inside as well. The staff only admitted inside a certain amount of voters at a time so the length of the line was deceiving (there is a limit to how many voters can be inside a polling place at a time under state law). Despite this, folks did not wait more than about 15 minutes to get served. That would soon change. Within a half hour of my arrival the line grew and the wait time doubled. By noon, it was at least an hour wait.

Line at the 4th Council District early voting site, mid-afternoon on October 29, 2024. Photo taken by author.

“Early voting” means one thing in Pennsylvania and another everywhere else it is permitted, and even something else among election data geeks like me. Outside of the Keystone State, “early voting” refers to a process where a voter shows up at an elections office and votes just as they would on Election Day. The voter enters the polling location, gives their name and address (and ID, if required by their state) to the election worker, is given a ballot or directed to the voting machine, and casts their ballot. Except for the location (most likely) and time, there is nothing different about this kind of early voting and voting on Election Day.

In Pennsylvania, there is no similar process. Here, what voters are actually doing is voting by mail. This is how that works. Voters show up at the county elections office (or a satellite office - Philadelphia has one for each City Council District), they fill out an application to apply for a mail ballot, give it to the election worker who confirms that the voter is registered in that jurisdiction and processes the application, a mail ballot is produced for the voter, then the voter fills out the mail ballot, seals it, and leaves the office to drop it in a drop box outside. It sounds like just an extra step, but it is actually much more work.

The mail voting process in Pennsylvania is more complicated than it needs to be. And when there is additional complication, there is greater chance for a voter to make a mistake. When a voter makes a mistake on a mail ballot, there is a good chance that ballot will be rejected. If done early enough in the right county, the voter will be contacted and given a chance to “cure” (fix) the mistake by physically coming into the elections office during business hours before the deadline (which I believe is November 12th this year, but don’t quote me on that). However, many people whose ballots are rejected are never told or given the opportunity to cure the mistake.

To vote by mail in Pennsylvania, a voter has to be registered by the deadline (October 21st this year - you can quote me on that date), and apply for a mail ballot online or by mail. Or that voter can come into an elections office during the early vote period - which cannot start earlier than October 1st, but each county gets to make its own decision on when, and must end at 5:00 PM on October 29th (which was yesterday). The easiest thing to do is to get your ballot in the mail and then return it the same way or at a drop box. However, I spoke to a number of people in line yesterday who were there because the mail ballot they requested never came.

Once the voter receives the mail ballot, there are several steps that must be taken to ensure it will not be rejected. Unlike California, for instance, where I voted by mail this year, there are two envelopes that the ballot has to be nested in. After marking their ballot, the voter must place it in a yellow “privacy envelope” and then place that envelope in the return envelope. It’s not difficult in itself, but it is one additional step that one might forget and one that would be fatal to having the ballot counted. Not only that, but no writing is permitted on the privacy envelope. Technically, no writing that identifies the voter or how they voted is permitted, but how that is interpreted is up to the election worker preparing the ballots to be counted on Election Day. Some election workers might reject any marking on the privacy envelope.¹ Also, the envelope must not be damaged. Several people who had mail ballots already showed up yesterday because their privacy envelopes were damaged and they needed new ones. Luckily, there is no identifying information on the envelopes (by design), so staff could just hand them new ones without having to wait in line.

Once the ballot is placed into the privacy envelope, and that is placed into the return envelope, the voter must take care to properly sign and date it. Signing an envelope on a mail ballot is standard practice, that’s to be expected. But when it comes to the date, voters get confused. The place to fill out the date consists of blocks in which only one numeral can be placed. Instead of writing 10/29 the voter must take care to write 1 – 0 – 2 – 9 in the correct boxes. And underneath the boxes, it appears that the first box is for English and the second for Spanish (even though the numerals are the same; see image, below). This year the “2024” has been added automatically because of another problem this created in the past - voters were confused as to whether they were adding the current date or their birthdate, and a number of ballots were rejected because voters did the latter.

It’s not theoretical that writing the date on the envelope is confusing to voters; several asked me for help yesterday and they could not understand how they were supposed to do it. Several mistakenly put 10 in the first box and 29 in the second box. And when they made mistakes, they were told by staff they needed a new return envelope or risk their ballot being rejected, which meant getting back in line. (Return envelopes are printed with the voter’s name and address and a unique barcode to identify them, so staff could not just hand them a new one.)

A Pennsylvania mail ballot for the 2024 primary election. (Lauren Aguirre / Votebeat). Courtesy of WHYY. For the general election ballot, the year was complete filled in to read “2024.”

More than few voters were upset with the process, concerned it was designed to discourage them to vote. (They are correct about that.) The process led to a longer wait than folks probably were expecting. The wait times are deceptive for that reason. I initially underestimated the wait times because I did not think the lines were long enough for a 2 hour wait from all my experience in other states during early voting or on Election Day. Nevertheless, a lot of people voted yesterday. Once the wait got to about 2 hours it stayed that way until the polls closed at 5. There was still a long line that had to be served at that time.

If you are in line when the polls close, you get to vote. That’s how it works. So, if you show up after work on Tuesday at your local polling place and are in line as the polls close, do not let anyone tell you that you cannot vote. As long as you are in line before the polls closed, you have the right to vote.

I was surprised to hear how many people were concerned about the drop box security. Maybe I should not have been in light of the firebombing of some drop boxes in Oregon and Washington earlier this week. I also heard concerns about using the mail, and that is one reason they decided to come stand in line rather than use the postal process. Voters were reassured by learning that the drop boxes are emptied three times each day, and it happened at least once while I was there yesterday - and just as someone asked when the boxes are picked up.

Drop box pick-up at the 4th Council District early voting site, October 29, 2024

Yesterday, was a real inspiration. As far as I could tell, not one person chose to leave rather than wait. Some folks had come from other offices that had even longer waits (the central county office had waits of over 3 hours at one point). While right-wing conspiracy theorists continue to scream about voter fraud so they can complain when Harris wins, they may also have energized their opponents to do whatever it takes to vote. A lot of voters I talked to yesterday told me that they felt as if their right to vote was under attack by the right-wing and that they were not going to be turned away, no matter how difficult the voting laws were making it for them. That is one of the most important ways to resist fascists: do not let them discourage you from participation. Making life difficult for you is a key organizing principle for the right. Unfortunately, fascists are relentless and this will not end even if they are soundly defeated at the ballot box this year. Freedom may be an endless meeting, but democracy is an endless process of participation.

In closing, there is one more way that “early vote” is used – and that’s by the election data geeks. When you are looking at election data from a platform such as L2 or TargetSmart, you should know that the term often refers to all types of voting done before Election Day. The term encompasses mail voting and in-person voting. In some states, there are separate procedures for absentee ballots and other mail voting, which is relic of poor legislative drafting when creating new mail voting processes. In other states, all mail voting is called absentee voting (with or without an excuse). But, in any case, on L2 you will see a number of “early ballots requested” and “early ballots returned.” It seems rational to assume that the latter number cannot be larger than the former, but that is not true. Since the former includes only requests for mail ballots and the latter includes all early votes (mail + in-person), in most states the latter will be the larger number at the end of the day. So, don’t assume something nefarious is going on. It’s just confusing unless you are swimming in this stuff.²

1. The idea behind prohibiting writing on the privacy envelope is to protect the identity of the voter and their vote. However, this is specious if you ask me because the idea of a secret vote is to allow voters to keep their vote secret – voters are free to tell anyone they want who and how they voted.

2. It is always better to ask, “what am I missing?” than to assume there is something sinister happening. Data can be difficult to wade through and understand if you are not already immersed in it. And even when you are, it can be confusing.