Last Updated on October 27, 2022
Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Leigh Chapman warned voters that tallying midterm election results could take “days,” adding that voters should expect delays. Chapman explicitly stated that a final result cannot be expected on the night of November 8.
Speaking with Chuck Todd of Meet The Press Chapman cited a PA election law that bars election officials from counting mail-in or absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on election day. Poll workers will be counting both election day ballots as well as those outstanding ballots after 8 p.m.
“The best we can do is just manage expectations and let voters know that election officials need to do their job,” Chapman told Todd. “They need to ensure that they’re counting every vote, and delays in results does not mean anything bad is happening. It doesn’t mean ballots are showing up out of nowhere. It’s because of that restriction where we can’t start preprocessing or canvassing those votes until election morning.”
More than one million mail-in ballots have been requested for the upcoming election. A little over half have been returned with a little under two weeks until election day.
In 2020, it took Pennsylvania four days to count all outstanding ballots.
In the Keystone State, mail-in and absentee ballot requests have spiked significantly in recent years. During the 2018 midterm elections, a little under 190,000 mail-in or absentee ballots were requested across the state. That number has now ballooned over one million for the current cycle.
Pennsylvania is home to two massive statewide elections for governor and U.S. Senate.
Dr. Mehmet Oz is currently locked in a tight race with far-left challenger John Fetterman, though the former celebrity doctor has gained in recent days. The lone debate between the two did not go well for Fetterman earlier this week, as the current Lieutenant Governor struggled to speak. Fetterman is recovering from a stroke he suffered in May.
The state’s gubernatorial race has largely polled in favor of Democrat Josh Shapiro, though a recent Rasmussen poll has Mastriano within the margin of error.
