Philadelphia adds a mechanism to catch multiple votes

• Election officials in Philadelphia voted Tuesday to reinstate a procedure designed to capture double votes.
• The method compares mail-in ballots with poll books on election day.
• Following a lawsuit by the Republican party, the Philadelphia city commissioner voted 2-1 in favor of the resolution.

Election officials in Philadelphia voted Tuesday morning to reinstate a procedure designed to capture double votes, which will probably slow down the release of results from the state’s largest city.

If the crucial US Senate contest between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz is close, the decision to reinstate the frequently cumbersome poll book reconciliation procedure might draw national attention to Philadelphia.

To make sure people did not vote twice, the method compares mail-in ballots with poll books on election day.

Following a lawsuit by a Republican party that claimed Philadelphia was courting multiple votes with a plan to reduce back on poll book reconciliation, the Philadelphia city commissioner voted 2-1 in favour of the resolution early on Tuesday. Even while Judge Anne Marie B. Coyle rejected the Republican organization’s appeal, she called the local election authorities’ decision to alter the vote book procedure “erroneous” in her ruling.

According to a Philadelphia city election official who spoke with media , the elections board decided to restart the procedure on Tuesday out of a strong desire to avoid any appearance of irregularity.

According to the official, they had planned not to employ the procedure since they wanted the process to go faster swiftly and had not experienced any double votes in the previous three elections.

The official stated that even though the Republican lawsuit did not oblige them to reinstate it, they nonetheless did so to allay any potential post-event concerns. The official claimed that they did not want even the impression that they were acting improperly, but they questioned why Philadelphia was the only city to receive a lawsuit from the Republican party.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Seth Bluestein, the sole Republican on the commission, said that when questions arise about delays in Philadelphia results, it’s because “Republicans targeted Philadelphia … to force us to do a procedure no other county does.”

Bluestein and the Democratic board chair Lisa Deeley cast the deciding vote to bring back the process. Omar Sabir, a Democrat, abstained.

The incident occurs as Philadelphia and other Pennsylvania jurisdictions struggle with another problem related to election day: the potential for thousands of mail-in ballots to be disqualified due to missing or incorrect handwritten dates on the return envelope.

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