Mail-in ballots mean many will have voted long before election day

After a flurry of visits to Western Pennsylvania, presidential candidates are running out of time to sway many voters.

Pennsylvania election offices already are taking applications and preparing to send out mail-in ballots.

Abigail Gardner, Allegheny County spokeswoman, said the county already has processed 160,000 mail-in applications. She said the county anticipates voters will see ballots in their mailboxes as early as this week.

“As soon as ballots are available, we will also begin ‘over the counter’ voting at the County Office Building — that means you can walk up, apply for a mail in ballot on the spot, receive a ballot, vote it and turn it in on the spot, or take it home and complete it later,” she said.

In Westmoreland County, voters can expect ballots to be mailed next week, said Jessica Goughnour, office manager for the county’s election department. Unlike Allegheny County, Westmoreland won’t have drop boxes anywhere other than in the election department office in the courthouse after county commissioners nixed plans for remote drop-off locations.

That means a lot of voters will have made their choices weeks before Election Day on Nov. 5.

But it’s yet to be seen if mail-in voting will be as widely used this year as it was in the 2020 presidential election, said Dan Mallinson, a political science professor at Penn State.

“It’s hard to use 2020 as a benchmark,” Mallinson said. “You’ll have to see what happens in ‘24, ‘28 and probably even ‘32 before you can say there’s been an increase or decline.

Though mail-in voting was used before the 2020 election, the effects of the covid pandemic made them hugely popular in some areas during the last presidential election.

In Allegheny County, with a sizable Democrat voter registration edge, about 47% of votes were cast via mail in 2020. In Westmoreland, with a Republican registration advantage, only about 29% of votes were sent in the mail, according to county election records.

Democrats far outpaced Republicans in both counties with use of mail-in ballots in 2020. In Allegheny County, 64% of Biden voters cast ballot by mail compared to just 24% of Trump voters. In Westmoreland, 55% of Biden voters mailed in their ballots while just 15% of Trump voters did so.

Biden won Allegheny County in 2020 and Trump won Westmoreland.

This year, Gardner said, Allegheny County expects to send out about 200,000 mail-in ballots, down from 2020 numbers but more than the midterm election in 2022, when a little more than 172,000 voters applied to vote by mail.

Westmoreland County sent out 35,318 ballots in the 2022 general election and expects to send about 40,000 to 45,000 this year, Goughnour said.

Mallinson said the popularity of mail-in voting in 2020 was heightened by the covid pandemic.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers are lower, but there’s still going to be quite a few,” he said.

Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University, said that, before the pandemic, Republicans did a terrific job with their mail-in ballot campaign. Where things became problematic was when states increased mail-in ballots in response to covid and a misinformed insistence on the process being corrupt was popularized on social media.

There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud through the use of mail-in ballots.

“The problem for Pennsylvania is mail-in ballots can’t be counted until Election Day,” Dagnes said. “If the election hinges on Pa., it’s going to be a couple of days.”

She said many current and former elected officials of both political parties have urged people to respect the process.

“It’s such an efficient way to vote for many people who can’t get to the polls,” Dagnes said. “It’s absolutely a shame that there’s so much distrust.”

Political scientists also will be looking to see if Republicans are able to close the mail-in voting gap with Democrats, Mallinson said. Democrats have performed better in mail-in voting previously; and Republicans are giving a greater push to give confidence to their voters to use mail-in voting this year.

How it works

Registered voters in Pennsylvania can apply to vote by mail without giving a reason why, according to the Department of State. Voters that will not be in their municipality on Election Day, or if they have a disability or illness preventing them from going to the polls on Election Day, can request an absentee ballot, which requires the voter to provide a reason for voting by mail.

Applications for a mail-in or absentee ballot must be received by a voter’s county election office by 5 p.m. Oct. 29. County election offices must actually receive the completed mail-in ballot by 8 p.m. Nov. 5 — a postmark of that date is not sufficient.

“The closer it gets to election day, we really encourage people to consider using a ballot return site to turn in the ballot in person and not risk putting it in the mail in case it is not delivered on time,” Gardner said.

“It needs to be returned to the County Office Building and in our election workers’ hands by 8 p.m. on election night,” she said. “You can always surrender your ballot at your polling place and vote in person if you didn’t get it turned in.”

People must present identification to apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot. People can apply for a ballot online, by mail, at their county election office; vote in person by mail ballot before election day; or, in the event of an emergency, request an emergency absentee ballot.

State law mandates voters to return their own ballot unless they have a disability and have designated someone in writing to deliver their ballot.

After a voter completes the ballot, they must seal their ballot in a yellow envelope marked “official election ballot.” The ballot must be enclosed and sealed inside the yellow envelope or it will not be counted.

Voters then seal the yellow envelope in the pre-addressed outer return envelope, and sign and write the current date on the voter’s declaration on the outside of the outer return envelope. Ballots then can be mailed back or returned in-person at a county election office, satellite election office or ballot return sites.

Gardner stressed the importance of following the rules for mail in ballots.

“If you fail to do any of those: if you don’t sign it, if you don’t use the date you completed the ballot — some people mistakenly put their date of birth — or if you omit the inner envelope, those are all disqualifying,” she said.

“So then, we return the ballot package to the voter and give them a chance to ‘cure’ it and resubmit. But the closer it is to election day the less likely it is they will have time to cure the ballot, so better to be accurate on the front end.”