Bucks Commissioners: Let Poll Workers Open Ballots Early

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Bucks County is asking the state's top lawmakers to let counties begin the process of counting mail-in votes sooner, saying without that permission, there's no way they'll have results of this year's presidential vote on Election Night.

In the letter, the three-member Board of Commissioners, all of whom also serve on Bucks County's board of elections, said election staff have been hard at work processing "hundreds of thousands" of mail-in and absentee voting applications.

But current state law says envelopes in which mail-in votes are received may not be opened until 7 a.m. on Election Day.

"(B)ecause of this limitation, it is all but guaranteed that Bucks County will not be able to deliver results on November 3rd and may be tabulating mail-in and absentee ballots for days or even weeks following Election Day," said the letter, signed by Commission Chairwoman Diane Ellis-Marseglia and commissioners Bob Harvie and Gene DiGirolamo.

RELATED: How To Get A Mail-In Ballot In Bucks County

The letter was addressed to Gov. Tom Wolf, House Speaker Brian Cutler, House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody, Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa and Senate President pro-tem Joseph B. Scarnati.

In August, Bucks County election officials said they are preparing for as many as 300,000 mail-in ballots in the Nov. 3 election due to concerns about the coronavirus.

Officials in Bucks and elsewhere in Pennsylvania are asking only for the ability to "pre-canvass" ballots early. That means they could take the ballots out of their envelopes and prepare them to be run through scanners, but not actually count them until polls have closed on Nov. 3.

In the letter, Bucks officials asked lawmakers to pass legislation letting counties begin that pre-canvassing one week before Election Day.

"Without your immediate action to pass legislation to permit the pre-canvass process to begin sooner, we have significant concern that voters will lack confidence in the results, regardless of all of our efforts to maintain transparency and deliver a well-run election," the letter said.

Pennsylvania's Republican-led legislature currently is considering a resolution that would create a committee to oversee the 2020 election in the state. Democrats, including Wolf, and other critics have called the measure a partisan attack on fair elections, with some saying it looks like an effort to throw the state in favor of Republican President Donald Trump.

In their letter, Bucks commissioners — two Democrats and one Republican — said they "welcome oversight in our operations" but said current law already provides for that.

"(I)f this resolution results in our staff being pulled away from their duties of administering a fair, secure and accurate election, that should give us all considerable concern," they said.