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Under pressure from a Republican lawsuit, Philadelphia officials decided early Tuesday morning to reinstate a lengthy process meant to prevent double voting, a move expected to delay the city’s ability to report a final count, perhaps in a matter of days.
The move comes as election officials in Pennsylvania and other swing states warn that the results of close races may not be known on election night. Officials have preemptively dismissed claims, such as those made by President Donald Trump after the 2020 election, that the delays are a sign of fraud or nefarious activity.
Philadelphia leaders stressed Tuesday that they were only taking the extra step that could slow the process because of Republican litigation.
“I want to make it very clear that when there are conversations that happen later tonight about whether or not Philadelphia has counted all of its ballots, that the reasons why some ballots won’t be counted is because Republican lawyers targeted Philadelphia, and only in Philadelphia, by trying to force us to do a procedure that no other county does,” city commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, said Tuesday at a public election board meeting.
The process, known as “ballot book reconciliation,” is a way to avoid double voting that Philadelphia implemented in 2020 amid a dramatic expansion of mail-in ballots in the state. It requires poll workers to interrupt the counting of ballots to scan the poll books so that the lists of voters who returned mail-in ballots can be compared to those who voted in person. The process usually takes three days, according to court records.
Reconciliation of the voter book is not required by state law, according to court records. And most counties don’t. But late last month, the Republican-led organization known as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, which includes strategist Karl Rove as a founder and former Attorney General William P. Barr on its board, support a lawsuit to force Philadelphia election officials to reinstate the process.
In a statement, the group credited itself with convincing the city to change its position.
“Any duplicate vote undermines the integrity of the system. We know double voting happens and it happens for a variety of reasons, good, bad, ugly and illegal,” said Derek Lyons, RITE President and CEO. “Having the audit will protect the integrity of the count. As voters increasingly choose to vote by mail, it is even more important to audit ballots to prevent double voting.”
City officials argued that the reconciliation process was time- and labor-intensive and no longer necessary given other improved procedures to prevent double voting and voters’ growing familiarity with mail-in ballots. In the past three elections, the reconciliation process has found zero duplicate votes, court records show.
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City officials also said they wanted to eliminate the process to comply with a new state law that provides funding to improve election administration. Philadelphia received $5.4 million under this law on the condition that the counting of ballots continue “without interruption.” City officials said they were concerned that stopping the count to scan survey books could be considered a disruption, which could put them at risk of losing grant money.
Democratic groups that intervened in the case said the lawsuit was an effort to “call into question the validity of mail-in ballots and perpetuate the evidence-free claim that ‘bad things happen in Philadelphia.’
On Monday, Philadelphia state court Judge Anne Marie Coyle declined to order city officials to reinstate the process, finding that doing so on the eve of the election would be an undue burden. But Coyle issued a scathing 13-page order in which he found that city officials “failed to consider the encouragement of fraudulent voting that might prove reasonable” in their decision. The Republican plaintiffs immediately appealed.
“Although we technically won the court case,” Bluestein said at Tuesday’s meeting, “the opinion was written in such a way that we have no choice but to move forward and restore reconciliation.” He and Commissioner Lisa Deeley (D), chairwoman of the election board, voted to restore the process; Commissioner Omar Sabir (D) voted against it.
Most of the mail-in ballots will be counted Tuesday, according to Deputy City Commissioner Nick Custodio. But before workers can count the ballots received in the last day or two before the polls close, they will have to spend time scanning the ballots, just as they have done in recent elections.