Judge orders Erie elections board to extend hours as thousands of mail ballots remain missing

Source: Pennsylvania Capital-Star

November 1, 2024 9:35 pm


A judge has ordered the Erie County Board of Elections to extend its operating hours and take other steps to ensure that thousands of voters who requested mail ballots but did not receive them can still get mail ballots and return them by the Election Day deadline.

The judge’s order comes after the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania sued the county in an attempt to get officials to remedy the problems.

“So this week, we headed to court to make sure that those voters have a chance to vote; and we won,” a senior Harris campaign official said on a call with reporters Friday. “Erie is now extending hours through the weekend for local voters, and they are overnighting ballots to voters who may be out of state. We certainly wish that these errors didn’t happen, but in a country with elections administered at the local level, with almost 200,000 precincts, isolated incidents are inevitable.”

The Democratic Party filed the suit on Wednesday, with the support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania was added as an intervenor on Thursday. Erie Court of Common Pleas Judge David Ridge ordered the elections board to remain open over the weekend Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Monday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Read more: https://penncapital-star.com/election-2024/pennsylvania-judge-orders-erie-elections-board-to-extend-hours-as-thousands-of-mail-ballots-remain-missing/