Republicans have put their plan in place to claim that the Pennsylvania Senate race has been stolen if Democrat John Fetterman wins it. On Tuesday morning—literally Election Day—following a lawsuit by Republicans, Philadelphia’s three-member elections board voted to reinstate a process that will make vote-counting take longer in Philadelphia than in the rest of the state. A Democratic winning margin would be expected to come from, yes, Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Republicans are reviving Donald Trump’s 2020 argument that votes counted later are somehow suspect. They’re making sure the largest pool of Democratic votes in the state gets counted more slowly, and then they will take that slowness as reason to claim the election is being stolen from Republicans.
“I want to be very clear that when there are conversations that occur later this evening about whether or not Philadelphia has counted all of their ballots that the reason that some ballots would not be counted is that Republicans targeted Philadelphia—and only Philadelphia—to force us to conduct a procedure that no other county does,” said Seth Bluestein, the one Republican on the city commission, as he reluctantly voted to make the change.
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Here’s how it happened: All counties in Pennsylvania conduct what’s called poll book reconciliation in which they check mail ballots against in-person voting books to be sure that no one whose mail ballot arrived too recently to show up on the books at their polling place on Election Day voted twice. But most counties conduct poll book reconciliation after counting so as not to slow down the results with a process that will remove at most a few dozen votes. Philadelphia had done poll book reconciliation during the count, dramatically slowing the process, but decided recently to do things like the rest of the state.
Republicans sued to prevent that. On Monday, a Republican judge slammed Philadelphia officials for changing the city’s process, but said that she could not force them to change back so soon before the election. With Republicans appealing that decision, though, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the city commission felt it had no choice but to reinstate poll book reconciliation during the count.
“While we technically won the court case in Common Pleas Court,” Bluestein said, “the opinion that was written was written in a way that we have no other choice but to go forward and reinstate reconciliation.”
Philadelphia will also be subject to a new Republican requirement that votes be counted “without interruption,” a requirement that may conflict with the pause required by poll book reconciliation. Millions of dollars in state funding are on the line if Philadelphia doesn’t fulfill the “without interruption” requirement.
But beyond the funding question, Republicans will claim the delay in counting Philadelphia’s votes indicates that when the votes are counted, the election is being stolen. We know that because we saw exactly that happening in 2020 when Republican-controlled legislatures in battleground states prevented mail votes from being counted or even processed until the polls closed, creating the famous “red mirage” in which Republican votes were more likely to be counted early. We also know it because they’re telling us what they plan:
Republicans are like the villain in a movie who tells you the dastardly plan ahead of time. They’re in court suing to create the outcome that they will then use to declare fraud. But millions of their base will absolutely buy this, especially with Fox News ranting about it for hours a day. This is why it’s so important for everyone outside the Republican base to learn, right now, what the plan is: so it's recognizable as it happens.
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At long last, the 2022 midterms are almost here! With the battle for the House front and center, we give you a window into the key races on a final pre-election episode of The Downballot. We discuss a wide range of contests that will offer insight into how the night is going, including top GOP pickup opportunities, second-tier Republican targets, and the seats where Democrats are on offense. And with many vote tallies likely to stretch on for some time, we also identify several bellwether races in states that count quickly.
