Pa. officials have begun processing mail ballots. Here’s what to expect for the rest of the day and night.

For months, election officials in Pennsylvania have repeated the mantra that Tuesday is just like any other Election Day.

Dedicated election workers have spent months preparing for the moment. They’ve processed thousands of voter registration and mail ballot applications. They’ve recruited poll workers.

And doors open to voters at 7 a.m., though inevitably a few polling places will be delayed when the lights don’t work or a janitor forgets to arrive early.

At 7 a.m., officials will begin processing mail ballots. At 8 p.m., they’ll begin reporting results as in-person returns come in.

They do this every year. Twice a year.

But it’s an unavoidable fact that 2024 is not like any other election.

“We know that the eyes of the world are going to be on Philadelphia,” Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, told reporters before a tour of Philadelphia’s counting center 10 days before the election.

Polls have persistently predicted the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be decided in Pennsylvania by razor-thin margins, and there is a very real possibility the race could hinge on the results in the commonwealth.

On top of that, in the week leading up to the election, Trump and his allies made the commonwealth the epicenter of election misinformation and unfounded claims of malfeasance.

While Pennsylvania election officials have made strides over the past four years to speed up the counting of mail ballots, it could still take days for officials to finish counting the lion’s share of ballots in the state. And if the race is close that will mean days before it is clear which presidential candidate carried the state.

“In general it looks a lot like it did four years ago, except that we have a lot more experienced staff,” said Bob Harvie, the chair of the Bucks County Election Board.

» READ MORE: What Pa.’s anticipated high in-person turnout on Tuesday could mean for lines and reporting results

The lead-up to the 2024 election has been cloaked with the memory of 2020, when Pennsylvania had not counted enough ballots for the state to be called until the Saturday after the race and Trump and his allies spent that time spreading lies about voter fraud in the state and filing a deluge of frivolous lawsuits.

Misinformation and litigation have already weighed heavily over the 2024 election.

Election officials across the state have faced dozens of lawsuits, some legitimate, and others less so.

In the days leading up to Nov. 5, Trump and his allies created a sense of chaos around Pennsylvania’s election. They claimed election officials were engaging in voter suppression by cutting off lines for on-demand mail voting early in the day while still offering voters a chance to apply for a mail ballot they could receive later — the campaign sued over this and had on-demand voting extended in Bucks County. They falsely claimed counties that had encountered hundreds of fraudulent voter registration applications were actually dealing with thousands of fake ballots.

A week before the election, Trump posted to Truth Social that “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale level never seen before.”

The result is confusion, one that officials worry could sow conspiracy theories and mistrust in the election if Trump loses.

“Donald Trump has made clear that he’s going to target Pennsylvania voters and is sowing the seeds of doubt in an attempt to subvert the results of the election,” said Neil Makhija, the chair of the Montgomery County Election Board.

Days before the election right-wing activists lodged thousands of baseless challenges to mail ballot applications — sowing more confusion ahead of the election and likely delaying the counting of any ballots submitted by those voters.

Officials expect that misinformation to continue, coupled with harassment and threats against local officials.

“We take pride in our work and I have the utmost level of confidence in our staff and our ability to do this. It’s the criticism and the misinformation and the lies that really get me twisted,” said Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley, a Democrat.

But officials tried to set these concerns aside heading into Election Day, as they prepared to administer an election with votes that matter just as much Tuesday as they matter in any other election.

“Despite all the negativity and disillusionment and politics people fundamentally recognize that the right to vote is something that is sacred, it is something that is to be celebrated,” said Makhija.

And they worked hard to ensure voters that their votes would count. And the election would be fair.

“People here in Philadelphia take your elections seriously and it will be a safe place to vote. It’s the birthplace of democracy and I’ll be damned if democracy dies on my watch,” Omar Sabir, the chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, said at the news conference at the counting center 10 days before the election.

» READ MORE: How Trump and his allies on X are flooding Pennsylvania with lies in the final week of the presidential campaign

Pennsylvania election workers will work around the clock Tuesday until every ballot is counted and processed. The exact procedures and machines used will vary by county, as will the point at which their work is completed.

At 7 a.m., poll workers will open the doors of polling places across the state, welcoming voters to cast their ballots in person in what is expected to be the highest in-person turnout election since 2016.

Simultaneously, election workers in all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties will begin slicing open thousands of mail ballots that have already been returned, flattening the pages and scanning them into machines where the results can be tabulated. As of Monday morning, nearly 1.8 million ballots had been returned statewide.

Ballots that are undated, unsigned or don’t have their privacy envelope will be set aside.

Officials will begin posting results to county websites shortly after 8 p.m. Election workers will continue counting results, including in person and mailed ballots, until every received vote is counted.

While the vast majority of in-person ballots should be counted by the end of the night, counties will likely still be processing mail ballots into Wednesday or later.

Even once those ballots are counted the election is not certified. Election officials in each county will meet to formally vote on how to handle ballots that were set aside for issues including ID verification, missing date and missing signature. They’ll also vote on which provisional ballots to count. And overseas ballots have until Nov. 12 to be returned.

If the race is close, these are the ballots that could result in extensive litigation as each party looks to maximize their own vote count. Counties then have until Nov. 25 to certify their results.

Speaking to reporters a week before the election Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt noted that election workers will continue counting votes even after news organizations have called the race.

“The people responsible for running elections in every county that I’ve been to have been professional civil servants,” Schmidt said. “They’re going to do what they need to do to conform to the Pennsylvania election code to make sure that their voters’ votes are counted.”