A Delco committeeperson was detained for allegedly attempting to influence voters amid confusion over mail ballots. Here’s what to know.

Tensions over long lines as voters sought to cast their on-demand mail ballots began to boil over Monday when a GOP committeeperson from Marple Township was detained and cited for disorderly conduct at the Delaware County Government Center after officials say she interacted with residents waiting to vote.

Val Biancaniello, 55, was “disruptive, belligerent, and attempting to influence voters waiting in line,” according to a statement Tuesday from a county spokesperson.

Biancaniello’s detainment came as frustrations over long lines, offices running out of material, and voters being turned away were reported across Pennsylvania as counties faced high demand for on-demand voting that was driven in part by voters who wanted to cast their ballot early but were uncomfortable voting by mail after former President Donald Trump spent years sowing doubt in the system.

The incident escalated after some residents in the line complained about Biancaniello’s behavior to members of the county Park Police Department, who were on site to provide security for the government center.

Officers from the department asked Biancaniello to leave, the spokesperson said. When she refused, she was handcuffed and led to a side room.

After a brief time, she was released and issued a summary citation.

Biancaniello did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.

In a post on X, Biancaniello said that she was responding to an elections worker who told the people waiting in line that they would have to wait two hours to receive their ballot, and that those instructions were tantamount to voter suppression.

She said she believes she did nothing wrong and plans to fight the citation.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley shared the video of Biancaniello in handcuffs on X, and said she was encouraging voters to stay in line. He claimed the incident was proof of “voter suppression from the left,” though state law does not require counties to allow voters to request on-demand mail ballots.

The deadline to request a mail ballot in Pennsylvania, whether on demand or mailed to a voter’s home, was 5 p.m. Tuesday. Voters in Bucks County and elsewhere were frustrated as county election officials cut off lines before the end of posted hours and turned away voters who sought to request and cast their ballots. Mail ballots must be returned to county election offices by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt urged counties to allow voters in line by 5 p.m. Tuesday to request and submit their mail ballots. But his guidance was nonbinding, and state law does not directly say whether voters in line when an election office closes must be allowed to present their application and immediately receive a ballot.

“Please remember that elections offices are not a polling place and that if you don’t apply for your mail ballot by 5 p.m. today, Pennsylvania’s 9,153 polling locations will be open for 13 hours on Election Day,” Schmidt said during a daily briefing Tuesday.

Voters who could not apply and receive their mail ballot in person on the same day can also apply for a mail ballot online and return it in person by Election Day. The mail ballot application can be accessed here and you can find your local board of elections’ office addresses and contact information here.

James Blair, a top staffer for Trump’s campaign, posted to X Tuesday afternoon that voters must stay in line and should contact the campaign’s attorneys if they are not allowed to vote.

In Bucks County, the county cut off the line around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday for voters to apply for and submit their ballots in person. Voters who joined the line after that were allowed to fill out a ballot application with a promise that they could either pick up the ballot the next day or have it mailed to them.

Delaware County Election Director Jim Allen said the county took a similar approach, cutting off on-demand ballots at 3 p.m. but continuing to allow voters to request mail ballots.

Pennsylvania voters can vote early in person only by requesting and receiving a mail ballot in one trip. That process takes about 12 minutes per voter, according to Bucks County officials, and access to it varies by county based upon resources and number of election offices in a community. It is a courtesy process provided in all 67 Pennsylvania counties.

The process is not subject to the same laws as in-person Election Day voting, when voters in line by the time polls close must be allowed to vote.

The RNC sent a letter to Schmidt on Monday urging him to provide additional resources to counties and argued that voters should not be turned away when seeking to request an on-demand mail ballot.