Philadelphia, PA has made a last-minute change on Election Day that has the potential to impact some of the most closely watched races in the county.
The Philadelphia City Commissioners said it will delay counting thousands of paper ballots after the polls close Tuesday night because of a lawsuit that accused it of being open to double counting. (RELATED: Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Sues Over Mail-in Ballots)
According to The New York Times, the agency voted 2-1 at a special early morning meeting to reinstate a process called “poll book reconciliation,” which is designed to eliminate the duplication of in-person votes and those already cast as mail-in or absentee ballots.
Seth Bluestein, one of the three commissioners, said after the vote that the decision will impact an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 paper ballots that will not be counted on election night.
“Ballots that we received after the latest updates to the poll books will not get counted tonight while we reconcile the in-person vote with those returned ballots to make sure there are no double votes of somebody voting by mail,” he said.
“The procedure, which delays counting some ballots, is no longer necessary as poll workers and voters have gotten used to voting by mail,” he said.
The eleventh-hour ruling stems from an October lawsuit filed by conservative legal advocacy group, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections that challenged the election board's decision to forego the reconciliation process.
Commissioners argued the process was no longer needed due to other measures enacted to detect duplicate ballots. Officials said the reconciliation had not found any duplicate votes in the last three elections.
However, the lawsuit argued that the process had flagged multiple double vote violations in the 2020 presidential election and that the increase in mail balloting in recent years made it more necessary, not less. The state adopted no-excuse absentee voting in 2019.
The decision will delay in the vote count in Pennsylvania, one of most hotly contested battleground states, where the Democrat candidate, John Fetterman, and the Republican, Mehmet Oz, are in what polls show is a very close Senate race.
RealClearPolitics has rated the race a “toss up” but recent polls have indicated Oz widening his edge over Fetterman.
This story is developing. Stay with American Liberty News for the latest updates.
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Wonder if all those election monitors the DOJ is going to spread around the country will allow the republican watchers to stay around to watch them as well as the left wing vote counters?
No matter what the republican watchers should just hold the line. If anyone has not yet cast their votes, it is better to VOTE IN PERSON. TAKE THE BALLOT TO A POLL PRECINT WORKER, DO NOT USE THE BALLOT DROP BOX!
In past elections Pennsylvania needed a day or two to manufacture and truck the ballots around to overcome the legal winner of the election.