Pa. election officials are bracing for another round of lawsuits, recount requests, and claims of fraud in 2024

Pennsylvania is preparing for what’s expected to be another tumultuous presidential election cycle.

All eyes will be on the key battleground state for a likely rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, and top election officials are getting ready to administer the election, guide counties through tallying votes — including millions of mail ballots — and combat misinformation.

They’re also bracing for a flurry of lawsuits and claims of voter fraud after the election, as happened in 2020 when Trump and some of his supporters refused to accept the results.

Here’s a look at how Pennsylvania’s state government officials, led by Gov. Josh Shapiro and Secretary of State Al Schmidt, are prepping for the 2024 election — and what is still unresolved.

Shapiro, a Democrat, has assembled an election task force of law enforcement officials, lawyers, and election administration experts. Led by Schmidt, a Republican who served as a Philadelphia city commissioner during the 2020 presidential election, the task force will ensure the state is ready for anything that could threaten voters’ access to the polls or undermine election results, Shapiro said.

Shapiro previously created a similar task force in 2020, when he was serving as attorney general, that was focused only on law enforcement and legal challenges. As governor, he said he wanted to consolidate that process among top officials.

“It’s our responsibility to make sure that legal voters have access to the ballot box and that their votes are counted,” Shapiro said in an interview last month. “That work has been underway for months and we’re going to continue to keep at it and ensure that we have, again, a free and fair, safe and secure election.”

Department of State officials said last week that more details about that process would be released soon.

Some aspects of Pennsylvania’s mail voting law are still the subject of pending litigation, four years after it took effect. (And so are parts of the state’s election code, nearly 100 years later.)

The major case still being decided is whether ballots that were not hand-dated by a voter — often called undated ballots — should be counted. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has a hearing scheduled in that case this week, and Schmidt said he hopes a ruling will follow soon after.

Recounting votes is another issue that will likely go before the courts this year.

A 1927 Pennsylvania law states that any three voters from a precinct may request a hand-recount of votes if they believe fraud or errors took place.

The state Supreme Court offered some clarity last year when it ruled that petitioners requesting recounts must provide evidence of fraud, but the issue is likely to return to the courts this year.

Election advocates and county officials are concerned about potential efforts to delay vote certifications by requesting recounts.

“We’re gonna see recount petitions again,” said John Jones, Dickinson College president and a former federal judge who ruled on Pennsylvania’s voting law in 2020, at an election event in Lancaster earlier this month. “Courts have got to be at the ready.”

The 2020 election cycle was unprecedented. It was the first time Pennsylvania’s new no-excuse mail voting law was in effect, it was the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Postal Service struggled to deliver ballots on time, and Trump made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

Since 2020, election officials (at least those that have stuck around) have administered six more elections and have ironed out issues with mail ballots. But threats to Pennsylvania’s election process aren’t over.

Guidance given to voters and counties from the Pennsylvania Department of State on how to handle mail voting led to confusion and gave rise to conspiracies in 2020, such as last-minute guidance that told counties they should notify voters if their ballot had a disqualifying error, also known as ballot curing. Most of those issues have been rectified by the courts or the legislature, and Schmidt said he’ll work to communicate quickly and more clearly with counties.

“The Department of State will do everything it can to issue guidance well in advance of Election Day, unless compelled to do so by a court decision,” Schmidt said. “We should do everything we can to avoid surprises or changes in close proximity to the election. I’ve been very clear about that. I’m a former county election administrator, I know it as well as anybody.”

One thing officials don’t expect to change from 2020: the spread of misinformation and threats to election workers’ safety.

Pennsylvania has not received any credible threats so far, Schmidt said, and the Department of State monitors social media so officials can attempt to debunk disinformation that could threaten voters’ confidence in the election.

Schmidt is also familiar with threats to election workers, as he experienced them personally while running Philadelphia’s elections. He testified in 2022 before the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol about the threats he received due to Trump’s lies about Philadelphia’s election process.

“Having gone through 2020, there’s a big difference from someone naming my children and saying what they’re going to do to them and someone threatening, ‘You’re going to get what’s coming to you,’” Schmidt said.

Pennsylvania implemented automatic voter registration in September, and it’s led to a 50% increase in new registrations compared to the same period two years ago, Schmidt said.

Shapiro directed PennDot to automatically register eligible voters when they get a driver’s license or ID card, joining 23 other states that already have the practice.

While some Republican pundits said the move was intended to register more Democratic voters, it’s had a different effect; there’s been an almost equal number of Republican, Democratic, and independent voters so far.

“It’s almost the perfect pie chart,” Schmidt said.

While the policy change is increasing the number of registered voters in the state, research on automatic registration has been indeterminate on whether it increases voter turnout.