Thread by @ulleryatintell

It's Primary Day in PA! There were about 8.75 registered voters across the commonwealth as of May 17's Department of State voter export. While we probably won't see the kind of turnout we did in Nov., I think it's going to be an interesting day for voter turnout 1/?

Let me explain why before I head out to the polls in #BucksCounty. Southeastern PA and Allegheny County have some of the highest total registered voters. Now, PA does have a closed primary system, but we have some pretty important ballot questions that are open to all voters 2/

@jdprose with the PA capitol bureau for @Gannett has the breakdown on those stories questions here. Referendums on disaster declaration authority will certainly draw in voters. We're already seeing that in Bucks County. 3/
bit.ly/3eY1p88

@areneewill and @marioncallahan stopped out at local polling places this morning. Turnout seems very light at some polling places earlier today, but ballot questions seem to be adding to the interest. 4/
bit.ly/3fqte7T

Which gets me back to what I was most interested in: voter turnout. Now, municipal primaries tend to see lower turnout than other regularly held election days. @BucksCountyGovt voter counts shows municipal primaries generally see between 11% to 15%. 5/

In fact, only about 12% of all voters currently registered in PA have participated in every primary and election since 2019. About 47,861 voters in Bucks County have been that consistent. That's roughly 10% of the 476,093 voters found in the rolls this week. 6/

So, why do I think turnout is going to be so interesting today? Mail-in ballots of course. As of today, the state reported approximately 816,454 voters have requested a mail ballot for the primary and almost 60% have been returned. This map is pretty neat too 7/

Mail ballot requests account for between 4% to 13% of voters by county across the state. Bucks County's mail ballot requests, about 54,161 voters, is around 11% of total voters. Montgomery County is at 13%, the top spot overall (Bucks is 4th highest percentage). 8/

Ready for the cool part about all of this? In most counties, those total consistent voters out number mail-in ballots, but not in a handful of places like Bucks and Montgomery counties.

As for party participation, voters in Bucks are keeping pretty close to the same proportions as the state. Dems are the most active by mail, GOP voters substantially less and other voters are about a quarter to a third of GOP voters. (I lost count)/?

Personally, I think we're going to see a bit higher than average turnout for a municipal primary in Bucks, driven in part by ballot questions and probably more so by mail-in ballots. Why is that important? Glad I asked... ¾/?

Election officials in Bucks County made a lot of changes since the record breaking turnout in Nov. Among those changes so far has been adding a new drop box location in Lower Bucks county and will likely add more.
bit.ly/2RrQ8Ux

That one drop box is just a start for groups like @BucksVoices20, who have been pushing for double digit drop box locations in the county. One concern is fewer drop boxes makes it harder to cast a ballot if a voter doesn't think @USPS will deliver it in time.

While Bucks County might up its total drop boxes before the Nov. 3 election this year, there's also a bill that could increase drop boxes in all counties. @SenSantarsiero introduced his Safe Drop Act earlier this year.
bit.ly/3eV0WU7

#TheSafeDropAct would require at least one box per county and further require one box per every 20,000 residents. Around the same time, he also introduced SB 599, which would allow election workers more time to prepare ballots to be counted.

RIght now, election workers across the state had to hold off on "pre-canvassing" all of their mail in ballots when polls opened this morning. That's potentially tens of thousands of envelopes that had to wait to be opened.

Officials across the state and both sides of the aisle have been calling on more pre-canvassing time since before last year's primary (the first time no-excuse voting was used). There was also the pandemic that has helped drive that participation.

If mail ballot use remains a significant part of voter turnout even in municipal elections, maybe ... just maybe that pre-canvassing window could open a little wider.

More information about voting in Bucks County can be found here: buckscounty.org/government/adm…

@pegquann @dcw @ChrisDornblaser and I will be on election coverage for the evening. Check @CourierTimes and @TheIntellNews for more.
@marioncallahan also has a great video from earlier today buckscountycouriertimes.com/videos/news/20…

As always, @matplotlib @geopandas were used for this data anaylsis using @py_data_sci (Python programming language) and data from @PAStateDept available online. #PythonintheNewsroom. @threadreaderapp unroll

Okay, so this is a totally anecdotal update but I thought it was interesting. I was at Doylestown Township's 5th voting precinct earlier today. About 238 people had cast a ballot in person, or about 9% of the total voters registered.

The judge of elections there, fascinating guy btw, told me that about 171 of 322 mail ballots requested had been reported returned by the county as of Friday. That would put the overall turnout at about 409 out of 2,403 reporting in, or 17% turnout.

So, remember earlier I was talking about consistent voters? Well, about 266 voters in that precinct haven't missed a vote since 2019. Since I was factoring in voters who consistently voted before no-excuse mail in was a thing.

I'm now curious if those people I labeled as consistent voters will also mostly be in-person voters today. I can't extrapolate that far with just one precinct, but wouldn't it be interesting if our mail ballots represent a significant portion of people who might not have voted?

again, anecdotal. Still, I think this is going to be a much more interesting primary than I originally thought.

8.75 million... damnit.