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‘Reprehensible’: Why Two Swing States Won’t Declare Winner of 2024 Election for Days

The 2024 presidential election could hinge on how a handful of key swing states vote. In two of those states, vote-by-mail rules mean it could take several days to determine the winner.

To secure a majority of Electoral College votes, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — the presumptive Democratic nominee who is expected to be the official standard-bearer at next month’s Democratic National Convention — will compete fiercely in a small handful of swing states. In both 2016 and 2020, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin played a decisive role in determining which side cleared the 270 electoral vote threshold.

According to a recent report from the Washington Post, it could take days for the counting of mail-in votes in those two states to be completed after Tuesday, Nov. 5. And as voters wait on tenterhooks for a winner, election workers could be targeted with intimidation and threats during that prolonged period of uncertainty.

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The After reported that both states are unique in that they have rules prohibiting the counting of mail-in ballots before Election Day, known as “pre-canvassing.” Pennsylvania’s Democratic-led House of Representatives introduced a bill to allow county election officials to begin counting mail-in ballots a week before Election Day, but the Republican-controlled Senate declined to bring the bill up for a vote.

“It’s reprehensible that they couldn’t get it done,” Kathy Boockvar, who served as Pennsylvania’s Democratic secretary of state in 2020, told the After. “This is not rocket science. The reality is that not passing this law means it will take longer to count the votes, which means it will take longer to get the election results.”

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Democratic Rep. Scott Conklin, said county officials responsible for administering elections repeatedly told him that the top item on their wish list for 2024 was pre-canvassing. He accused Republicans of deliberately creating an environment that fuels skepticism and distrust by refusing to more efficiently finalize Pennsylvania’s election results.

“This is a perfect example of how elected officials deliberately cause delays, create an atmosphere of conspiracy and do it on the backs of good citizens who trust them,” Conklin said of GOP senators in the Keystone State.

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In 2020, election workers across the country were harassed and threatened with death. Then-President Donald Trump claimed an early victory in Pennsylvania as the counting of mail-in votes was underway, but the commonwealth’s mail count ultimately favored then-candidate Joe Biden. When Biden took the lead on the Saturday following the 2020 election and secured Pennsylvania’s electors — and with them the majority of the Electoral College — Trump’s then-attorney Rudy Giuliani alleged election fraud during a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia County Commissioner Seth Bluestein, who served as deputy commissioner in 2020, told the After that he and his team received death threats while the mail-in votes were being counted. Local police eventually arrested two armed men from Virginia who were convinced that election fraud was taking place. The men were carrying both a 9mm pistol and an AR-15-style rifle, along with 160 rounds of ammunition. A hat in the vehicle bore the logo of the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement.

“That larger window of time where the final outcome is not known — that’s where a lot of this intimidation and threat environment can occur,” Bluestein said. “If we were to do advance research, that would really limit the window of time for misinformation and disinformation to spread.”

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