These are the steps officials take to ensure elections are safe in Pennsylvania
Election experts describe an elections security system that uses audits, equipment testing and more to ensure ballots are safe.
Election experts and state leaders say it’s critical voters understand that results of the Nov. 5 election can be trusted — and why that is — amid the disinformation war being waged by former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and right-wing lawmakers.
“Elections in Pennsylvania have never been more safe and secure, with a voter-verified paper ballot record of every vote that’s cast, whether you vote in person on Election Day or you vote by mail,” Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, a Republican, told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that ran on Oct. 13.
The following is a breakdown of what Pennsylvania’s election officials do to guarantee election results are accurate.
Voter registration and voter roll maintenance
Residents registering to vote and casting their ballots in Pennsylvania’s elections are thoroughly vetted, said Amy Widestrom, the executive director at the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. The league is a nonpartisan group that encourages public participation in government and works to inform residents about public policy.
“I know there’s a lot of mis- and disinformation out there about noncitizen voting, and just also list maintenance — who remains on the voter rolls — and there are very clear processes for checking eligibility to register to vote on the backend that voters don’t see,” Widestrom said.
The processes used to vet voter eligibility include double-checking Social Security lists and double-checking voter applicants’ Social Security numbers, Widestrom explained. “There are mechanisms in place that election officials follow to ensure that only those who register to vote can vote.”
Once a voter is registered, their eligibility to cast a ballot continues to be verified by election officials. Jeff Greenburg, the senior adviser of election administration at the Committee of Seventy and a former director of elections in Pennsylvania’s Mercer County, noted that each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties is required by federal and state law to conduct annual voter list maintenance. That maintenance allows election administrators to remove from the rolls deceased individuals and those who have moved. The National Voter Registration Act stipulates that states and counties may only remove a voter from their registration lists in the following circumstances: if the voter approves the change; if state law requires the voter be removed due to a criminal conviction or mental incapacity; if the voter has died; or if the voter confirms a change of address.
Greenburg, who served as Mercer County’s director of elections from 2007 to 2020, explained that Pennsylvania counties annually check voters’ addresses using the federal government’s National Change of Address database and ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center.
“Pennsylvania’s voter list maintenance laws are very clear, and the election officials follow those laws,” Widestrom said.
Paper record for voting
Following a 2018 settlement in a 2016 lawsuit filed by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, all Pennsylvania counties had to, by 2020, purchase new voting machines that produced verifiable paper records of voted ballots that could be audited.
For Greenburg, it’s those paper records that may be the most important part of the state’s election security process.
“There are two processes, in my mind, that we are blessed in Pennsylvania to have, which may be the biggest reason that I would suggest that we can trust what happens in Pennsylvania,” Greenburg said. “Number one, we have paper ballots for every voter in Pennsylvania.” Those paper ballots are fed into voting machines that produce ballot cards, paper records of what’s on the ballot that every voter can check before the ballot itself is scanned and the vote is recorded.
“The second part of that equation, which gives me confidence in what we do in Pennsylvania, is our auditing procedures,” Greenburg said, mentioning counties’ auditing procedures used to check for and flag any issues with voting machines.
Nationwide, election workers and experts advocate for using paper ballots because they can be used in post-election audits. Election workers are able to check the paper ballots against the electronic vote totals to ensure that the voting machines are working correctly.
Voting equipment storage, testing and audits
A county may only purchase a voting machine that has been examined by the state, as required by Pennsylvania’s Election Code. On top of the state inspection, all voting equipment must also be certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Once a county is in possession of the voting equipment, it is stored securely, Greenburg explained.
“Every county has facilities under lock and key, under surveillance, where their equipment is maintained and stored in between elections, and only can be accessed by authorized personnel,” Greenburg said.
Voting machines also undergo rigorous testing to confirm they are working properly before every election. That state-mandated voting machine testing requires checks of all technology used in a county’s election.
The public is able to observe the voting machine testing.
“There is nothing that ever should, or ever has to, occur behind closed doors,” Greenburg said.
In order to certify the results of every election, all 67 counties conduct two different audits after each election. For one of the audits, each county randomly selects either 2,000 ballots or 2% of its ballots — whichever is fewer — and counts and tabulates them to ensure they match the unofficial results reported on election night or in the days following the election. The second audit involves officials taking a random sample of paper ballots and comparing the votes on paper to the total vote reported by the vote-counting machines.
To find out more about the specific voting machines used in Pennsylvania, you can visit the Department of State’s website.
What to expect on election night
Pennsylvania is one of seven states that does not permit election workers to begin processing mail-in or absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day. As of the time of this story’s publication, more than 1 million mail-in ballots had been returned in Pennsylvania, about 680,000 of which were from Democrats and 330,000 of which were from Republicans, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of State.
Simply put, it’s going to take time to process mail-in ballots, as well as provisional, absentee, overseas, and military ballots, Widestrom said.
“The thing that I really want to make sure folks in Pennsylvania know is that time doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong,” Widestrom said. “It’s not out of the ordinary. It doesn’t mean that anything nefarious has happened or anything to be suspicious of. It’s just we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of mail-in ballots over the years, and it just takes time to count those ballots. And we want to make sure everybody’s ballots are counted.”
Greenburg said counties are better positioned with staffing and resources compared to the 2020 election. He expects 90 to 95% of all ballots will be reported on election night. However, because of how close the presidential election is expected to be in Pennsylvania, it could be days before Pennsylvania’s election results are known.
“I believe that the overwhelming majority of counties in the state will have their mail and absentee ballots pretty much done by election night before people go to bed,” Greenburg said. “The problem is, if you have a razor-thin margin that’s less than 1%, then those remaining ballots are clearly going to impact the ability to call Pennsylvania.”
Additional resources
To learn more about election security measures in Pennsylvania, visit:
