PA begins counting mail-in, absentee ballots

Описание: (3 Nov 2020) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4295780

Absentee and mail-in ballots in are being processed in one Pennsylvania county in a gym at a local university.
Signatures inspected, envelopes opened and ballots flatted by inspectors at West Chester Universty in Chester County.
"By Pennsylvania law, we're really not allowed to start pre-canvassing and canvassing, which basically means opening and counting our ballots till 7:00 a.m. on Election Day," Bill Turner, acting director of Chester County voter services said."
The county issued 172,000 mail-in and absentee ballots according to Turner.
"We brought over about 140,000 mail in and absentee ballots here to the university. And that kicked off right at 7:00 a.m.," Turner said. "We have about 65 to 70 people working each shift to open these ballots. It's a very manual labor intensive process."
In a county of 380,000 registered voters that leaves a lot of people who will be going to the polls.
"It's very likely that we could see easily, you know, another 150,000 people going out to vote in person," Turnder said.
There is still the question of mail-in ballots received after Election Day.
"The PA Supreme Court upheld that, if anything, that is postmarked by November 3rd, Election Day. That's received after 8:00 p.m.. We can accept it up until this Friday at 5:00 p.m. We know there is that window there that right now we're allowed to accept that those mail in and absentee ballots," Turner said.
The decision on those ballots could still be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
"But to be prepared for that, we're segregating those ballots separately and doing that through a separate process to keep them out of the those ballots will be received before or by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day," Turner said.

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