Officials in Pennsylvania’s most populous city on Nov. 8 imposed last-minute changes to ballot processing that could delay the vote count.
In a 2–1 vote during a special meeting, the Philadelphia City Commissioners decided to amend how ballots are processed.
The change focuses on reconciliation, or reviewing absentee ballots and in-person votes to make sure people don’t cast duplicate votes.
Facing pressure from a lawsuit, Commissioners Lisa Deeley, a Democrat, and Seth Bluestein, a Republican, voted to have reconciliation take place for ballots cast in the midterm elections.
“I want to make very clear that when there are conversations that occur later this evening about whether or not Philadelphia has counted all of their ballots, that the reason that some ballots will not be counted, it’s because Republican attorneys targeted Philadelphia—and only Philadelphia—trying to force us to do a procedure that no other county does,” Bluestein said before the vote. “And while we technically won the court case in Common Pleas Court, the opinion that was written was written in a way that we have no other choice but to go forward and reinstate reconciliation.”…