Pa. voters had ‘improved voting experience’ in primary election, top voting official says

Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt held an in-person press conference on Pennsylvania's primary election on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Commonwealth Media Services)

With primary voting over and ballots being tallied, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said at a news conference Tuesday night, “Pennsylvania’s voters overwhelmingly encountered an improved voting experience this year.”

So far, Schmidt’s  office said, the issues election officials have been made aware of were “minimal” and “isolated,” such as a couple of polling places opening late. Schmidt said he is unaware of any significant unforeseen closures of polling places or instances of eligible Pennsylvanians being prevented from voting.

What appears to be a relatively issue-free primary election comes after a number of more tumultuous elections so far this decade. 

The 2020 election was conducted amid health concerns due to COVID-19 and during the height of pandemic-era restrictions on gathering. Its results were then challenged by former President Donald Trump and his supporters, without evidence. The 2022 election saw the rejection of a large number of mail-in votes over technical issues, which resulted in a lawsuit that was only ruled on months ago.Touting the success of Tuesday’s election, Schmidt noted the department’s election complaint hotline received significantly fewer calls than during the previous two primaries, which Schmidt said he hopes is indicative of fewer issues.

The nonprofit election news organization Votebeat reported, however, that some mail-in voters had issues with the state’s redesigned mail-in ballots. While Schmidt said the new ballots were designed to reduce voter errors when filling them out, it appeared a number of voters failed to fill in the last two digits of the year when dating their ballots. Schmidt said it will not be clear until ballot-counting is complete how widespread the problem is.

According to the Votebeat report, last Friday, Deputy Secretary for Elections Jonathan Marks emailed counties urging them to still count mail-in votes even if the last two digits of the year aren’t properly filled in. Whether to count such ballots is up to counties’ discretion, and several counties told Votebeat that they would not be counting the improperly dated ballots.

“Voting by mail, and I just want to stress this, is not complicated,” Schmidt said. “The instructions are very clear. Voters have a lot going on in the course of a day, so you do see mistakes.”

Over 895,000 mail-in and absentee ballots were requested this election.

By law, elections officials could not begin processing mail-in ballots until this morning, and the work is still ongoing. Schmidt urged patience in waiting for results in close races that may be determined by mail-in and provisional votes, or where recounts may be requested.

“I urge you to be patient,” Schmidt said. “This work takes time.”

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