‘Make your plan now.’ Here’s what to know ahead of Election Day in Centre County
The hours until Election Day are winding down and Centre County is working to make sure everything is in place and ready to go for the big day.
On Nov. 8, Pennsylvania voters will head to the polls from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. to cast their vote for a new governor and lieutenant governor, U.S. senator, and state house and congress representatives.
Centre County Commissioner Michael Pipe on Friday encouraged voters to make a plan before Tuesday.
“If you’re voting on Election Day at a precinct, just encouraging people to check their registration status to confirm the polling location and make a plan to vote. Make your plan now. Are you going to go before work, during lunch, right after work? Are you going to go after class, before class? Are you going to ride your bike, drive, carpool?” Pipe said.
County preparations
Between Friday and Monday, Pipe said the county would be doing a lot of organization and preparation, and “double checking, triple checking, quadruple checking.” The county was printing the poll books for the precincts and polling locations, and packing up all the equipment, documents and forms to go to the locations on Friday and through the weekend. A public test of the election machines took place on Thursday.
“We are continuing to receive vote-by-mail ballots through the dropbox and mail, and people also dropping them off in person here at the election office, and those are being organized, processed and getting prepared to be taken up to the Penn Stater … for the pre canvassing,” Pipe said on Friday.
Poll workers help elections run smoothly in Pennsylvania. The county has not had difficulty finding poll workers and has received an “overwhelming number” of poll worker interest forms submitted continually since 2020, Pipe wrote in an email. The rate of return for poll workers is about 75% since 2020.
Prior to every election, training is held for all poll workers.
“It’s a bumper-to-bumper training from setting up the equipment to returning everything on election night. Our elections office has examples of every type of form, booklet, machines, sample ballots, etc. that poll workers use on election day for examination and clarification,” Pipe wrote.
They’re trained on “anything and everything,” Pipe wrote. The elections office developed a “Poll Worker Manual” that covers every scenario that a poll worker may experience during Election Day.
There are only a few ways that poll workers are allowed to challenge a voter at the polls, Pipe wrote, and the most likely challenge of a voter is related to residency or identity.
Voting by mail & results
In late October, acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman wrote in a press release that unofficial results will be available within a few days of the election, as current election laws prohibit counties from pre-canvassing mail-in ballots until Election Day.
“Before mail ballots can be scanned and counted, they must be removed from their envelopes and prepared for scanning. Under Pennsylvania law, counties cannot begin this pre-canvassing of mail ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day,” an October press release from Pennsylvania’s Department of State reads.
Chapman wrote that “counting all the eligible votes and reporting the results take time, and counties are rightfully focused on accuracy over speed.”
Centre County’s vote-by-mail drop boxes closed at 9 a.m. Monday, which is a change from previous years. But people are still able to bring their mail-in ballot to the county’s elections office at the Willowbank Building, 420 Holmes St., Bellefonte, until polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday.
The counties that accepted Act 88 funding from the state, which include Centre County, have to begin pre-canvassing at 7 a.m. on Election Day and “continue without interruption” until each mail-in ballot and absentee ballot received by 7 a.m. on Election Day is pre-canvassed, according to the state Election Code.
Act 88 also states counties will begin canvassing, or counting, mail-in ballots and absentee ballots when the polls close 8 p.m. on Election Day and will continue without interruption until each ballot has been canvassed.
“... It will potentially go into the early morning of Wednesday,” Pipe said.
Incorrectly dated ballots
Last week, a state Supreme Court order directed counties to reject undated mail ballots in Pennsylvania’s midterm elections.
Mail-in ballots are not to be counted if the handwritten dates fall before Sept. 19, or after Nov. 8, and absentee ballots are to be rejected if they are dated before Aug. 30, or after Nov. 8.
Centre County does not do ballot curing, but ballots that are undated or incorrectly dated will be set aside at an “issues table” in the vote-by-mail processing room at the Penn Stater, Pipe said.
“Observers and watchers (in previous elections) have then contacted those voters to alert them that they can vote provisionally. If a mail-in ballot is canceled due to a missing or incorrect date then that voter votes provisionally, the past practice of the board of elections has been to count the provisional ballot,” Pipe wrote in a text Monday.
Once the count is done, the undated or incorrectly dated ballots will be brought to the Willowbank Building and brought before the elections board to be adjudicated. Pipe said Centre County won’t know how many ballots contain date errors until the county’s board of elections meets from 2-5 p.m. Thursday.
Checks & Balances
Nationwide, election integrity is a point of concern for some voters, but Pipe said there is always a check and balance in place.
“Any issue that comes before the board of elections, there’s a check and a balance, if not numerous ones, that that issue is going through,” Pipe said. “We can always rely on some check and balance that will assist us when making a determination about how ballots are to be handled.”
He said the “vast majority” of ballots cast will count, but there are always several that have technical issues that, through the courts or legislation, will be adjudicated a certain way.
“The amount of checks and balances that people see when they go to vote in person, there’s so many that are happening behind the scenes that people aren’t just aware of but they’re happening,” Pipe said. The same thing happens for the vote-by-mail process.
Election complaints can be made to the judge of elections at your polling place before you leave, according to the Department of State’s website. If the issue is not resolved, report them to the county elections office by using the online complaint from, pavoterservices.pa.gov/Pages/ReportElectionComplaints.aspx.
If there is a more immediate need, call the voter hotline at 877-VOTESPA (877-868-3772).
