Comment Under pressure from a Republican lawsuit, Philadelphia officials decided early Tuesday morning to reinstate a time-consuming process designed to prevent double voting, a move expected to delay the city’s ability to report a final tally — perhaps for a few 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 countered claims — such as those made by President Donald Trump after the 2020 election — that the delays are a sign of fraud or malicious activity. Philadelphia leaders stressed Tuesday that they only took the extra step that could slow the process because of Republican differences. “I want to make it very clear that when there are discussions that are going on later this afternoon about whether or not Philadelphia has counted all of its ballots, that the reasons that some ballots will not be counted is because Republican lawyers have targeted Philadelphia — and only Philadelphia — in trying to force us to do a process that no other county does,” City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, said Tuesday at a public election board meeting. The process, known as “poll book reconciliation,” is a way to prevent double voting that Philadelphia implemented in 2020 amid a dramatic expansion of mail-in ballots in the state. It requires election officials to stop counting ballots to scan the ballot books so that lists of voters who returned mail-in ballots can be compared to those who voted in person. The process generally takes three days, court records show. The poll book agreement 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 Gen. Karl Rove as a founder and former attorney general William P. Barr on its board — filed a lawsuit seeking to force Philadelphia election officials to reinstate the process. In a statement, the group took credit for persuading the city to change its stance. “Any double voting undermines the integrity of the system. We know that double voting happens and that it happens for a variety of reasons, the good, the bad, the ugly and the illegal,” said Derek Lyons, President and CEO of RITE. “Conducting the audit will protect the integrity of the count. As voters increasingly choose to vote by mail, it is even more critical that ballots are audited to guard against double voting.” City officials argued that the reconciliation process was time-consuming and no longer needed because of other improved procedures to prevent double voting and voters’ growing familiarity with mail-in ballots. In the three previous elections, the reconciliation process found zero duplicate votes, court records show. Pennsylvania voters scramble to cast new ballots after GOP lawsuit City officials also said they wanted to scrap the process to comply with a new state law that provided 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 pausing the count to scan the poll books could be considered a disruption, which could put them at risk of losing the grant money. Democratic groups intervening in the case said the lawsuit was an attempt “to call into question the validity of mail-in ballots and to perpetuate the evidence-free claim that ‘bad things are happening in Philadelphia.’ On Monday, State Court Judge Anne Marie Coyle in Philadelphia declined to order city officials to restart the process, saying doing so on the eve of the election would be unduly burdensome. But Coyle issued a scathing 13-page order finding that city officials had “failed to consider the encouragement of fraudulent voting that could reasonably result” from their decision. The Republican plaintiffs immediately appealed. “While 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 commission, voted to reinstate the process. Commissioner Omar Sabir (D) voted against it. Most 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 poll books, as they have done in the last several elections.
