Elections Officials Remind Public of Ballot Rules

County says South Park video was deceptive, misleading

By Staff Reports
The Tube City Almanac
October 31, 2024
Posted in: Politics & Elections, State & Region

Allegheny County elections officials have issued this video explaining how absentee and mail-in ballots are counted. (Courtesy Allegheny County via YouTube)

Ahead of Tuesday’s election, Pennsylvania has become ground-zero for election conspiracy theories, experts warned this week, and they are cautioning the public not to be fooled.

Officials with the Allegheny County Elections Bureau have already attempted to debunk social media rumors after a video circulated of an absentee ballot drop-off location in South Park.

County officials said no illegal activity occured at the South Park drop-off facility, located at the county-owned ice rink on Corrigan Drive. The county elections bureau has opened temporary satellite offices at nine locations, including in Duquesne, Squirrel Hill and six other neighborhoods, where voters may deliver their own absentee ballots to elections workers.

A list is available here.

Ballots also may be handed off to elections workers at the county office building in downtown Pittsburgh.

257,000 mail-in ballots requested in Allegheny

“We strongly encourage voters who are still holding on to their mail-in ballots to use one of our 10 ballot return sites across the county,” Allegheny County Elections Division Manager Dave Voye said. “If we receive a ballot after 8 p.m. on Election Day, even if it is postmarked Election Day or earlier, we cannot accept it.”

Voters had until Oct. 29 to request a mail-in or absentee ballot in Pennsylvania.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of State, more than 257,000 Allegheny County voters requested mail-in ballots for the Nov. 5 election. Of those, about 201,000 have already been returned.

In Westmoreland, nearly 60,000 mail-in ballots were requested and about 49,000 have already been returned.

Across the commonwealth, according to the Department of State, almost 2.2 million mail-in ballot applications had been received in the state’s 67 counties, and nearly 1.7 million ballots have already been returned.

Voters who want to make sure their absentee or mail-in ballot has been received can use the state’s ballot tracking website.

State and county officials also have warned voters using absentee or mail-in ballots to follow the instructions carefully, including signing and dating the ballot envelope where instructed.

Although Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has ruled that a ballot cannot be voided simply because a voter did not sign and date the outer envelope, state and national Republican party officials have appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court.

In-person voting open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday

In-person voting will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Registered voters can find their local polling place at the state’s website.

The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reported this week that former President Trump, seeking a return to the White House, has amplified false and misleading claims about several Pennsylvania counties, including Lancaster, where the Republican candidate alleged that officials have “already started cheating.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who has campaigned for that party’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, pushed back on Trump’s claims.

“Let’s remember, in 2020, Donald Trump attacked our elections over and over,” Shapiro said in a statement. “He’s now trying to use the same playbook to stoke chaos, but hear me on this: we will again have a free and fair, safe and secure election — and the will of the people will be respected.”

Voters who request absentee or mail-in ballots may return them using the U.S. Mail, or may give them to a county official at an authorized drop-off location. Except in rare cases, state law does not allow anyone to return someone else’s absentee ballot, an activity called “ballot harvesting.”

One of the rare exceptions is that a disabled person who is unable to get to a ballot drop-off box may fill out a “Designated Agent Form” and send it with the person handling it.

County says South Park video misleading

A video circulated this week on social media claimed that “foreigners” were allowed to cut in line in front of other voters at the South Park ballot drop-box station.

The person who posted the video has posted other videos and photos, exclusively supporting former President Trump.

The claims in the social media post are false, Allegheny County elections officials said this week.

A county spokesperson said that a group of voters came to the South Park satellite election office on Saturday to apply for mail-in ballots and needed the assistance of a translator.

The county employee provided instructions that elderly and disabled people are allowed to sit while they wait for their applications to be processed, the spokesperson said.

County officials allow any elderly or disabled voter to sit while the applications were completed, the county said. The able-bodied persons then returned to the back of the line to wait their turn.

Persons who need a translator are able to use a translator, the county said. State law does not allow persons who are not American citizens to vote and only U.S. citizens may register to vote.

According to a story in the Tribune-Review, the group has since been identified as members of the Bhutanese ethnic community, who emigrated to the United States in the 2008 and were naturalized as American citizens in 2013 and 2014.

The deadline to register to vote was Oct. 21, the county spokesperson added, which means “any individual who requested a mail-in ballot this past weekend only would have been given a ballot if they were already registered.”

Officials warn of hoaxes before Election Day

In Erie, a group of Catholic nuns were accused of fraudulently voting by a Republican activist, Cliff Maloney.

Maloney claimed that no one lived at the monastery listed as the address for the nuns.

The Benedictine Sisters of Erie issued a news release calling the claims “defamation” and said they would be pursuing legal action.

“We want to call Cliff Maloney to account for his blatantly false post that accuses our sisters of fraud,” said Sister Stephanie Schmidt, prioress, in a written statement. “We do live at Mount Saint Benedict Monastery and a simple web search would alert him to our active presence in a number of ministries in Erie. We also want to alert those who subscribe to X and other social media platforms to be vigilant and seek additional information before accepting these posts as truth.”

Schmidt added: “A free republic depends on free and fair elections. It depends equally on a discerning and conscientious citizenry who do not unquestioningly accept the word of anyone who has a social media platform.”

A different video, also circulated on social media, claimed that ballots in eastern Pennsylvania’s Bucks County supposedly being destroyed.

That video was a fake that has been linked to Russian intelligence, according to a joint statement issued by the federal Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

In an unusually strong warning, the agencies said that the Russian government is trying to raise doubt “about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans.”

“In the lead up to Election Day and in the weeks and months after, the (intelligence community) expects Russia to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans,” the agencies said.

Originally published October 31, 2024.

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