Skip Navigation

Super Tuesday still paperless for many voters

Pa.'s commitment to paper ballots in every county stands in contrast to states like MA, OK, TN and TX

  • Emily Previti/PA Post
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, and his wife Jill attend a primary election night rally Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

 AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, and his wife Jill attend a primary election night rally Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

MEMO: Hand counting of ballots continues in parts of MaineMassachusettsVermontMinnesotaTexas, Tennessee (absentee ballots only here) and Colorado (only in San Juan County, home to just 750 voters), according to our analysis of data collected by Verified Voting data.

But most states, including Pennsylvania, no longer use the hand count method at all. It got me wondering when, exactly, Pa. phased out hand counting. I reached out to some experts, perused Nexis and Googled around. While I stumbled upon some fascinating resources (such as this history of voting methods/technology) in the process, I couldn’t find the answer. Contexters, I now appeal to you. Any leads? Please email me. —Emily Previti, PA Post reporter
Joe Biden, Jill Biden

AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, and his wife Jill attend a primary election night rally Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

As soon as the polls closed in Virginia last night, former VP Joe Biden was declared the winner of the commonwealth’s Democratic presidential primary. That kicked off a night of wins for Biden, who went on to (unofficially) take Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota, Alabama, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and North Carolina, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed his home state, as well as Utah, Colorado and the biggest prize of all, California.

As results came in, we took a look at how voters in the 14 Super Tuesday states actually cast their ballots.

  • In 13 of the states (Vermont being the sole exception), many voters used systems that Pennsylvania will deploy on April 28. None of them, however, voted on the controversial ExpressVote XL voting machine being used by Philadelphia, Northampton and Cumberland counties. And only two Colorado jurisdictions — home to 290,000 or so voters combined — use Clear Ballot’s system (the system in place in five Pa. counties).

  • Virginia, where turnout nearly doubled compared to 2016, used hand and/or machine-marked paper ballots from most of the same vendors used in Pa.: Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic, Dominion Voting Systems and Unisyn Voting Solutions, according to Verified Voting’s data.

  • Arkansas, Alabama, Colorado, Maine, Texas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Utah use one or a mix of those four vendors, too, but some jurisdictions still use older models. Most in this group rely entirely or primarily on paper ballots, and where touchscreen machines are used, those machines produce voter-verifiable, auditable paper trails.

  • Texas, Oklahoma and Massachusetts, however, still have some devices in use that don’t produce a paper trail, as does Tennessee, despite “nearly four years of handwringing and warnings about Russian election interference,” writes Eric Geller for Politico. (Pa. counties don’t have that option and must choose from a list of paper-based voting systems).

  • Voters complained about long lines in Dallas, which uses the newest hand-marked ballot system from ES&S picked by many counties in Pennsylvania, and a few other counties using Hart devices (models without a paper backup, in some cases). Texas election officials blamed the delays on counties dedicating too many machines for Republican voters, as Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA explains in this post.

  • Minnesota voters who tried to look up their polling place on the Secretary of State’s website were directed instead to a page promoting Sen. Elizabeth Warren. State officials blamed the issue on a high volume of traffic and on staff error, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.

  • A dramatic reduction in the number of precincts in Los Angeles led to delays at the polls. Voters there also had to grapple with a power outage while adjusting to new, controversial machines designed especially for L.A. that malfunctioned at some polling places and were in short supply to begin with at others. Plus, long lines were reported at many of the state’s new voting centers — just one of the statewide changes that took effect there yesterday, which USA Today’s Chris Woodyard outlined in this post.

  • The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, reported that California’s initial vote counts aren’t expected until the end of the week and won’t be certified until more than a month from now. The delay is partly attributable to the fact that California is one of the few states where voters can wait until Election Day itself to mail in their ballots.

  • In some parts of Texas, poll workers bailed over coronavirus fears. Coronavirus concerns prompted election officials in vote-by-mail states to encourage voters to use that option. Curbside ballot drops were another precautionary measure to attempt to minimize crowds at precincts, NPR reports. Election security experts also warned that fears of an outbreak could be weaponized throughout the year to try to influence elections, such as “by sending phony text messages warning about the virus to people in a particular city or neighborhood that favors one candidate,” writes Joseph Marks in this Washington Post story.

Best of the rest

Henry McCreary, president of the Rural Broadband Cooperative, leads weekly meetings with members in Mill Creek, Huntingdon County.

Min Xian / Keystone Crossroads

Henry McCreary, president of the Rural Broadband Cooperative, leads weekly meetings with members in Mill Creek, Huntingdon County. (Min Xian/WPSU)

  • The majority of Pennsylvanians — statewide and within every … single … one of its 67 counties — lacks a broadband Internet connection, according to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania. That stat departs drastically from the FCC’s estimate that just 600,000 people lack broadband access in Pa. — a difference CRP researchers attribute to the feds’ figures coming from providers (not to mention being flat-out wrong). Exact numbers aside, speed and access got bad enough in rural Huntingdon County that a group of volunteers developed their own broadband cooperative. Read all about the staggering effort in this story from WPSU’s Min Xian.

  • COVID-19 has prompted several universities to  cancel trips and programs abroad — including Gettysburg College, Temple University and the University of Delaware, reports WHYY’s Mark Eichmann. Meanwhile, the Harrisburg Diocese has announced coronavirus precautions of its own, including temporarily suspending the exchange of the sign of peace (the moment during mass when parishioners hug or shake hands) according to this PennLive story from Becky Metrick. LNP looked at how virus concerns affected church services in Lancaster County.

  • A caller to WITF’s Smart Talk on Monday asked two guests — Transforming Health reporter Brett Sholtis and Pa. Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine — how congregations should proceed in light of the coronavirus emergency. The next day, Dr. Levine announced that the state lab in Exton, Chester County, can now test for the virus; however, capacities remain extremely limited (to just six tests per day), Spotlight PA’s Cynthia Fernandez reports. Philadelphia, meanwhile, may have its first coronavirus case, The Inquirer reported last night.

  • Pa.’s Second Lady hit the streets of Lancaster recently to try to spread the word about the U.S. Census to traditionally undercounted groups, including immigrants. Giselle Fetterman, wife of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, was herself undocumented when she first arrived in the United States from Brazil at the age of eight. In recent months, she’s been telling her story as part of Pa.’s campaign to maximize participation in the upcoming population count: “I know what it’s like to be scared of a knock on the door.. We were terrified to open our door for years because our family would have been … deported,” Fetterman says. She described feeling similarly fearful watching her mother fill out the census form — but also, “as that young child who really felt like I didn’t belong or felt invisible, … the idea that there’s power in being counted.” Read LNP’s full story here.

  • Daniel Greenstein, chancellor for the State System of Higher Education, went to the legislature on Tuesday to warn that the affordability crisis at the state’s universities is driving a decline in enrollment. He asked legislators to provide more state funds for Pa.’s public universities. Ed Mahon has the story.


Subscribe to The Contextour weekday newsletter

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Up Next
Uncategorized

Coronavirus could pose big problem for Pennsylvania prisons and jails