Harrisburg, PA – Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said that today's municipal election in Pennsylvania ran relatively smoothly, with county elections boards reporting a minimal number of isolated issues.
"Thank you to our county election officials and poll workers for conducting another successful election in the Commonwealth," Schmidt said. "I also thank the voters who did their part and cast their ballot in this municipal election."
A handful of counties reported routine issues throughout the day, such as precincts opening a few minutes late. The Department offered its assistance to counties as they resolved those issues.
The most recent issue occurred in Delaware County, where police said a bomb threat investigation led them to close the polling place inside Radnor High School. The polling place was relocated to Radnor Elementary School, and a Court of Common Pleas judge ordered the voting hours there extended until 9 p.m.
The day's main issue occurred in Northampton County, where a clerical error by the voting system vendor caused a labeling mistake for some voters related to their selections in the Superior Court judge retention questions. Ultimately, county officials said, all voters' selections were correctly tabulated.
"While the county has assured voters that this issue will not affect the tabulation of votes, we will be following up with both Northampton County and ES&S in the coming days to determine why the error was not identified prior to Election Day," Schmidt said. "It is important that the county and the vendor continue to be transparent after the election so that voters have confidence that a similar issue will not occur in the future."
Across the Commonwealth, Pennsylvanians voted in-person at more than 9,000 polling places in the 67 counties. In addition, counties received more than 1 million mail ballot applications for this election – more than 931,000 for no-excuse mail-in ballots and nearly 96,000 for absentee ballots. As of 9 a.m. today, more than 76 percent of those mail ballots had been returned. Voters had until 8 p.m. to return their completed mail ballot to their county board of elections.
Final voter turnout numbers will be available in several days, after all eligible votes have been counted.
Department of State staff answered about 800 calls today via the commonwealth's voter hotline (1-877-VOTESPA). Most callers had questions about their voter registration status, polling place location, or mail ballot.
As unofficial results become available from counties, they are being posted on the Department's elections return site at electionreturns.pa.gov. The site provides statewide totals and county-by-county breakdowns of statewide races by votes cast in-person on Election Day, votes cast by mail ballot, and votes cast by provisional ballot.
Schmidt also thanked state and federal partners who helped ensure the security of today's election.
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MEDIA CONTACT: Matt Heckel, ra-st-press@pa.gov