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Pennsylvania voters looking to cast their votes early have been lining up at county election offices across the state for two weeks.

Republicans and Democrats have been responding to the daily mailers and social media advertising urging Pennsylvanians to “Vote early.” Both parties have pushed this strategy, which allows them to see who has voted, so they can focus advertising on voters who have not yet engaged.

The thing is, “early voting” does not exactly exist in Pennsylvania. Instead, there is “on demand” voting, a quirk unintentionally created when the state legislature passed Act 77 in 2019, allowing mail-in voting.

Voters who choose the mail-in ballot must request a ballot by the deadline — Tuesday, Oct. 29.

Once completed, the voter may mail it in any mailbox; drop it in a county ballot drop box; or, the preferred method for many voters, fill it out on the spot and hand it in at the counter of the county election office. That has become known as on-demand mail-in voting.

This ballot is stored with all the other mail-in ballots and counted with them, but for those voters who would not trust an envelope of $1,000 cash in the mail, handing the ballot to an election worker feels more secure.

Despite the Oct. 29 deadline to request a mail-in ballot, voters still have until election day, Nov. 5, to return it to the election office by hand, mail, or drop box.  

Things got testy Monday and Tuesday when county election officials in several Pennsylvania counties cut off lines of people who waited hours with the intention of “voting early.”

It happened all across the state, but Bucks County got the most attention on social media.  

Counties posted signs telling people they may not be served and the line could be cut off, and they brought in uniformed officials and tried to explain the process. But tensions were high and social media posts urged voters to “stay in line.”

By Tuesday night, Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, told a rally of supporters the GOP was going to sue Bucks “for turning away our voters.”  

But this was not Election Day, and these were not polling places. As election attorney Cleta Mitchell pointed out, even though a form of in-person voting takes place, the “Dem PA Supreme Court has ruled these are not POLLING LOCATIONS” and election observers are not allowed.

Pennsylvania counties were only set up to fulfill mail-in ballot requests and accept “on demand” mail-in ballot returns. There is a difference, and it relates to the signature polling book.

On Election Day, extra staff and volunteers are manning polling places across the county. Voters sign their names in an electronic or paper poll book.

To prepare the poll book, counties must give the state all voter information by midnight on Oct. 29, James T. O’Malley, a Bucks County spokesman told The Federalist.

Only eligible voters’ names go in the book. So if you received a mail-in ballot, your name does not go in the poll book. It is a guard against people voting twice.

On Election Day, all the ballots are printed, and after voters sign the poll book, they are handed a ballot, walk to a voting booth, mark their ballots, and then place them in the scanner to complete the voting process.

That was not the process this week because it is not yet Election Day.  

“On demand, mail-in voting has taken the place of early voting, and we’re not set up for that,” O’Malley said. “That’s why you end up with a long line. We have one printer that can print these ballots. We have staff that can process a few applications at a time, but you can only print one ballot at a time.”

The voter gets to the counter, asks for a mail-in ballot request form, and fills out the form. There is no poll book, so the election worker runs the individual’s information through the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE) computer system to make sure he is a registered voter, eligible to vote in the county. Then they tell the SURE System this voter has requested a mail-in ballot, print a ballot specific to the voter’s precinct, and hand the voter the mail-in packet, which includes two envelopes and the ballot.

The voter fills out the ballot, seals it in the inner and outer envelopes, signs and dates it, and hands it back to the election worker.  

To move things along, voters are given a space to step to the side and fill out the ballot. They do have the option of placing it in the drop box outside the building, mailing it, or bringing the completed ballot back another day.

“Most days that this on demand voting process has been going on, we’ve had to go out and cut off the line at a certain point,” O’Malley said. “We estimate that this process takes 12 minutes per voter from the time they get to the front of the line. That does not include the time you wait to get to the front of the line, which could be hours. They’re able to calculate how many people they could serve within regular business hours, and then at a certain point they cut off the line and they say, this is the last people we can serve today for on demand, mail-in voting.”

People were disappointed when that happened, he said, but it was not a huge problem until the last two days.

Tuesday, Bucks County accepted mail-in applications from everyone who was in line by 5:00 p.m.

Those who were not given a ballot in person on Tuesday will receive their ballot in the mail, and for those uncomfortable using the mail, the county promised to call and let them know their ballot is ready to be picked up in person, O’Malley said. They have until 8:00 p.m. on Election Day to return the completed ballot.

“I understand their frustration,” O’Malley said. “Everything they’re being told is that they’re going to get to come here and vote early — that this is a polling place, the same as voting early. It’s not a polling place.”

Election workers understand emotions are high.

“You know, 2020, was a lot, for a lot of people. We understand that as well.”

It is worth noting that after the line was cut off and the office was closed to the public, election workers stayed and processed all the information late into the night, to meet the midnight deadline so poll books will be ready in time for the Nov. 5 Election Day.

Wednesday the RNC posted on social media that it had been to court and prevailed in getting Bucks County to extend “early voting.”

Judge Jeffrey Trauger of the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas ordered the Bucks County Board of Elections to permit any person “who wishes to apply for, receive, vote, and return a mail-in ballot to appear at the Election Bureau office and do so during normal business hours before the close of business on Nov. 1, 2024.”

Trauger said the county’s action of turning voters away before the 5:00 p.m. deadline on Oct. 29 violated the election code.

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.