Thread by @CPotterPgh

Here I am going to try to address some confusion about why Allegheny County is not going to begin counting 30,000+ ballots until tomorrow. People are going bonkers about this, or castigating hard-working employees on no sleep, and it is wrong. (thread)

The ballots in question require special attention. The vast majority -- up to 29,000 -- involve a situation where a vendor sent the wrong ballots to voters, and had to reissue new ballots with the correct races. The challenge there is now voters have 2 ballots, one w/wrong races.

So you have to give those ballots special scrutiny to make sure that a) people don't vote twice, and b) if they just send in the old one, they don't vote in races they aren't eligible for. So you can't just scan them with the rest.

Other ballots in the pot include those that don't scan for whatever reason -- it's like when the ATM won't process the amount of the check you want to deposit, so you have to bring it into the bank office itself.

When ballots require special scrutiny, the county records the vote through a return board whose members are sworn in for that purpose. The board reviews the results tallied up by election workers after polls close, but also addresses provisional ballots, military ballots, etc.

... And the board's members are set to be sworn in tomorrow, the Friday after E-day. I am told by the election department's solicitor that this date is a requirement of the Election Code.

There is nothing nefarious here: Be advised, Trump supporters, that county's GOP chair is comfortable with process. Nor is this a case of shiftless public workers taking a day off. This is longstanding process, and the county made clear how 29k would be handled well before E-day

This has been the most complicated election of my life, made worse here by a vendor error that sent the wrong ballots to thousands of voters in a hugely contentious environment. People are taking time to try to do it right. Don't make it harder.

The other factor is the county HAS TO WAIT until Friday for mail-in ballots to come in that were postmarked by EDay. That whole situation was adjudicated up through the courts, and it is possible that some problems with 29k ballots (like duplicate votes) would only arise then

The county is holding a press conference about this stuff in about 15 minutes. Our @lucyperkins will be there, and TBQH it may be that THIS thread got some nuance wrong too. But suffice it to say: The county didn't just take the day off on these ballots. Ok? The end.

I broke my thread here so reposting two more, sorry:

The other factor is the county HAS TO WAIT until Friday for mail-in ballots to come in that were postmarked by EDay. That whole situation was adjudicated up through the courts, and it is possible that some problems with 29k ballots (like duplicate votes) would only arise then

Oh, and since some have asked about who the vendor was, it was Midwest Direct, and you can read more about it here.
spotlightpa.org/news/2020/11/p…

I will actually add one more, referencing this very good thread by @DKaplanWTAE, to explain more about the legal/court history that went into this

https://twitter.com/DKaplanWTAE/status/1324392061655724036

The county is holding a press conference about this stuff. Our @lucyeperk will be there, and TBQH it may be that THIS thread got some nuance wrong too. But suffice it to say: The county didn't just take the day off on these ballots. Ok? The end. (Deleted earlier tweet with typo)