Why voters in Pennsylvania shouldn't expect to see the final results until election night

PHILADELPHIA – Voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania will be eagerly awaiting their seats on election night, but officials caution that a result is not expected immediately.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican who will be appointed by Josh Shapiro in 2023, told FOX News that county election boards are prohibited from beginning processing absentee ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day.

“The terminology is usually called pre-election campaigning,” Schmidt, a former Philadelphia city councilman who clashed with Trump online after the 2020 election, told Fox News Digital. “In many other states, county councils can start that process before Election Day, whether it's three days or seven days or however long. But in Pennsylvania, counties can't start that process until 7 a.m. on election morning.”

Pennsylvania is one of seven states (including the contested state of Wisconsin) where pre-election counting is prohibited by law.

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Before the coronavirus pandemic, mail-in voting was rarely used and only allowed under special circumstances, such as when a voter is sick or traveling at the time of the election. That changed when former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed a “historic election reform bill” known as Act 77. It allowed most voters to request a mail-in ballot and vote by mail without having to provide a reason or excuse.

The pandemic has led to a significant increase in mail-in voting, and in the last Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, over a million people cast their votes by mail.

In June, Shapiro's administration announced that absentee ballot applications would be available two months earlier than in 2020, giving voters more than eight weeks more time to request their ballot.

In order for the state to begin processing mail-in votes before 7 a.m. on November 5, the state legislature must submit a corresponding law to the governor, according to Schmidt.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill in May that would allow county poll workers to begin processing ballots up to seven days before Election Day. The bill passed on a 102-99 vote along party lines, with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposing it, warning that it would open the door to voter fraud.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro supported the bill and urged the Republican-dominated Senate to pass it. The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania also supported the bill, saying it would help them manage the workload and get faster results.

“This simple change would greatly improve election administration without compromising the security of ballots,” Lisa Schaefer, the association’s executive director, said in a statement.

Republicans have been hostile to mail-in voting since Trump began baselessly denigrating it as being riddled with voter fraud in early 2020.

This is at least partly a result of the fact that in Pennsylvania, the majority of votes cast by mail—typically about 70 percent—are cast by registered Democrats, and the majority of votes cast in person on Election Day are cast by registered Republicans.

The Associated Press contributed to this report