Pennsylvania county voters courted by Harris and Trump have one more day to apply for mail-in ballots

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Voters in a popular suburban Philadelphia county heavily courted by presidential candidates had one last chance Friday to apply for a mail-in ballot, as a statewide county made available mail-in ballots to voters who had not received their mail-in ballots. – another chance to get it.

A judge in Erie County, in northwestern Pennsylvania, ruled Friday in a lawsuit brought by the Democratic Party that about 15,000 people who applied for but did not receive mail-in ballots can go to the county elections office and get a replacement.

The deadline to apply for mail-in ballots has passed in Pennsylvania, the largest and most vote-rich presidential battleground state this year and which has seen the most visits so far from Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.

But now the Erie County Board of Elections will be open every day until Monday for voters to come in, cancel a mail-in ballot they didn’t receive in the mail and get another without a prescription, said Cliff Levin, an attorney for the state Democratic Party.

In Bucks County, a Philadelphia suburb, the court set a 5 p.m. deadline for voters to apply for and receive a mail-in ballot.

There were about 100 people at the county elections office in Doylestown as of 4 p.m., and they said the process took about two hours.

The deadline was extended by three days in response to a Trump campaign lawsuit alleging voters faced disenfranchisement when they were turned away by county processing offices that closed.

The deadlines and office closures led to long lines and confusion among some voters who believed that, as at the polls on Election Day, they were eligible to vote if they were in line by the time the polling station closed. But county election offices are not official polling places, and officials announced closing times as early as 2 p.m. on the weekend.

The Trump campaign’s lawsuit says people who were in line to apply for a mail-in ballot in person by 5 p.m. Tuesday should have been allowed to receive a ballot even after the deadline. But the Bucks County Board of Elections denied voters that right and ordered them to leave, the lawsuit says.

Bucks County Judge Jeffrey Trauger ruled that the Board of Elections violated the state election code and ordered the deadline to be extended until Friday.

Unlike other states, Pennsylvania does not have true early in-person voting. Voters can apply in advance for mail-in ballots online or in person at county election offices.

It can take about 12 minutes and requires applying for a mail-in ballot, waiting for a barcoded envelope to print, and then if voters choose, they can vote on the spot. Or they can put it in a mailbox or mailbox. Election offices must receive ballots by 8 p.m. Tuesday; According to the state, a postmark would not be sufficient by then.

No-excuse mail voting is a relatively new phenomenon in Pennsylvania. The Legislature approved expanding the practice in 2019. In 2020, Trump—with no evidence to back up the claim—claimed that mail voting was rife with fraud, discouraging many Republicans from voting by mail. That changed this year, with Trump and billionaire business mogul Elon Musk endorsing the practice and urging supporters to vote early by mail.

Pennsylvania barely carried Trump in 2016 and flipped to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Bucks County carried Democrat Hillary Clinton by one point in 2016 before Biden extended the Democratic lead to five points in 2020.

___

Associated Press reporter Mark Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.