Schmidt tours Philadelphia election warehouse to highlight confidence in vote counting

PHILADELPHIA- Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt joined elected officials tasked with overseeing elections in the state’s largest county on a tour of an election warehouse in Philadelphia to demonstrate how the vote counting process will work on Nov. 5.

“We have a responsibility for oversight, but more importantly, we have a responsibility for support,” Schmidt said. “Elections are actually held at the district level. It’s the counties that run elections here in Pennsylvania.

Schmidt served as a city commissioner in Philadelphia for 10 years and oversaw the city’s elections during that period, including the most recent presidential election in 2020. He said there was “no place like home” because Philadelphia was the last county in his statewide search to visit election offices in all 67 counties before Election Day.

At every booth in the Northeast Philadelphia election warehouse, Commissioners showed how absentee ballots are tabulated, where mail-in or absentee ballots are received and where they will be stored.

City commissioners expressed confidence that the upcoming elections will be safe and sound and that it won’t take as long to tabulate the results in Philadelphia as it did in 2020.

“The beautiful thing about this election is that we will certainly run it faster and we will certainly run it more efficiently,” said Philadelphia City Commissioners Chairman Omar Sabir, a Democrat. “We will give the world the choices it deserves.”

A Republican member of the commissioner’s board agreed.

“We intend to conduct the safest and most secure election in Philadelphia’s history,” said Philadelphia GOP City Commissioner Seth Bluestein. “We’re going to do it now and make sure that with people looking at us from around the world, everyone can see exactly what’s going on and understand the vote counting process in Philadelphia.”

An influx of mail-in voting during the 2020 presidential election contributed to delays in the counting of ballots in Pennsylvania. Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania by just over 80,000 votes, with the race was held in the Keystone State three days after Election Day.

After Schmidt’s tour, he was asked whether Pennsylvania would be the last state counting ballots in 2024.

“A few things have changed since then,” Schmidt said. “One thing hasn’t changed since 2020, and that’s the law that prevents counties from starting to process absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day.”

An election worker shows one of the ballot sorting machines in Philadelphia on October 25, 2024. (Capital-Star photo by John Cole)

Schmidt mentioned both red and blue states, including Florida, that allow absentee ballots to be collected before Election Day.

“But a few important things have changed since 2020: Counties – Philadelphia and many others – have acquired additional equipment that will help process ballots, whether it be sorting, time-stamping, opening envelopes, or anything else.” Schmidt said. “Counties have a lot more experience than they did in 2020, which means this is the first time in Pennsylvania that any county has really managed to handle this volume of mail-in ballots.”

Schmidt also added that there will be fewer mail-in ballots in the upcoming election compared to 2020, when many voters chose to vote by mail due to pandemic lockdown restrictions.

“So you have new equipment, more experience and fewer absentee ballots to count,” he said.

Schmidt wasn’t the only person who mentioned the pre-acquisition process to reporters on Friday.

“We need a preliminary canvass in Pennsylvania,” Sabir said, responding to a question at the envelope review station. “If we could start this process before Election Day, it would save a lot of time because we could get results much faster.”

Philadelphia City Commissioner Vice-Chair Lisa Deeley expressed a similar sentiment.

“It’s really worth paying attention and really the purpose of this tour is so that you can understand when November 5 comes that we’re getting ready for the scanners,” Deeley, a Democrat, said at the scanning station. “That’s why it takes hours and hours and that’s why we, county commissioners and county commissioners across the state, have been begging the Legislature for common-sense reform that would allow us to start earlier, at least we can finish some of the process.”

“We literally start with a brick on Election Day and then we have to build enough to get to that point,” she added.

Sabir described the current process, which is like three elections, with 700 polling places across the city, 10 satellite voting sites and regular mail-in ballots, as another reason it takes longer in Philadelphia.

Demonstration during a tour of an election warehouse in Philadelphia, October 25, 2024.
Election board workers demonstrate how ballots will be counted in Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 2024. (Capital-Star photo by John Cole)

Allegheny County, which is the second most populous county in Pennsylvania, outperformed Philadelphia in previous elections, with officials say the results should be ready by midnight in the upcoming elections.

Asked about the time it would take for Allegheny County to tabulate the vote results, Sabir said they “want to make sure everything is in order and without any objections.”

“And I love Allegheny County, but there’s only one first-class county in the state of Pennsylvania, and that’s Philadelphia,” he said, adding that “they just follow a different process.”

Another issue raised by commissioners in connection with the delays, which is expected to recur on November 5, is the spread of disinformation.

“I think the delay is a serious problem because it allows misinformation and misinformation to get through and be repeated over and over again,” Deeley said. “The more people hear things, unfortunately, the more inclined they are to believe them.”

Sabir detailed one of the “crazy accusations” he saw on the blog, which falsely accused him of going to Atlantic City and meeting with a gangster to destroy ballots.

Sabir also said that he believed “low voter turnout is the result of disinformation and disinformation.”

Although the deadline for submitting an application for You cannot apply for a mail-in ballot until October 29Sabid said the county expects numbers to be below 250,000, down from the previous presidential election. This should support the process move faster, but he still couldn’t provide a specific date for Friday, when he said the city would finish tabulating the voting results.

“As the elections get closer, we will release the schedule,” Sabir said, citing “it will be much faster” with the support of the modern machines.

Bluestein, Republican, earlier this week, he criticized X owner Elon Musk for spreading election disinformation. He also highlighted the damage that can be done.

“Whether someone has 200 million followers or two, we all have a responsibility to get the facts right and only share accurate information about our choices,” Bluestein said. “The spread of misinformation and disinformation can result in real harassment, real threats and real violence, which is why it’s so important that people get accurate information from trusted sources and then make sure they only share information that is actually TRUTH.”

“For this reason, it is our responsibility as election officials to correct data when clearly inaccurate information is disseminated,” he added, saying that regardless of who disseminates it, it is critical to remember the facts.

Sabir acknowledges Pennsylvania’s importance in the upcoming election, telling reporters that it will likely “depend on the state,” but he is confident the city is prepared.

“Philadelphia was the cradle of democracy,” he said. “And I’ll be damned if democracy dies here.”

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