HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania's Secretary of State Al Schmidt announced Tuesday evening that Election Day ran "relatively smoothly" across the Commonwealth.
A handful of counties reported routine issues throughout the day, according to Schmidt, such as precincts opening a few minutes late.
In Delaware County, a reported a bomb threat forced officials to close a polling location. The polling place was relocated and a Court of Common Pleas judge ordered voting hours extended until 9 p.m.
Another reported issue was in Northampton County, where a clerical error by the voting system vendor caused a labeling mistake for some voters in their selection for the Superior Court judge retention questions. Ultimately, county officials said that all voters' selections were corrected and counted.
“While the county has assured voters that this issue will not affect the tabulation of votes, we will be following up with both Northampton County and ES&S in the coming days to determine why the error was not identified prior to Election Day," Schmidt said. “It is important that the county and the vendor continue to be transparent after the election so that voters have confidence that a similar issue will not occur in the future.”
Across the Commonwealth, Pennsylvanians voted in-person at more than 9,000 polling places in 67 counties, according to officials. In addition, counties reportedly received more than one million mail-in ballot applications- more than 931,000 for no-excuse mail-ins and nearly 96,000 absentee ballots.
As of 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, more than 76% of those ballots had been returned.
Schmidt also thanked state and federal partners who helped ensure the safety of Tuesday's election.
Department of State staff members reportedly answered about 800 calls via the Commonwealth's voter hotline, mostly asking about voter registration status, polling place location, or mail ballots.
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