I’m never surprised when I meet regular folks who have not the vaguest notion of how elections are administered, or what state and federal laws and constitutions have to say about election matters.
I’m not surprised by that because election laws in the U.S. are a crazy-quilt, with no two states doing things the same way. And even within a state, the statutes spelling out the requirements of election administration are typically a confusing hodge-podge of requirements and responsibilities. So I’m sympathetic toward the average guy or gal who maybe doesn’t quite understand how elections work.
But I’m not sympathetic when professional journalists working for major news organizations don’t understand these things. Because professional incompetence drives me to distraction. Always has.
Thus, when I just now came upon the headline illustrated above in an article at Vox this afternoon...well, let’s just say I’m still trying to peel my palm off my face. No, Vox, it is bloody well not“official.”
Here’s how the Pennsylvania Dept. of State explains the state’s election process — what must happen and when, before an election’s results are “official”. Dates below reference the November 2018 election as an example, but I’ve added notations for “days post-election” to help Vox understand how this process should more-or-less map onto yesterday’s special election.
- Nov. 6, Election Day [0 days post-election]
- Nov. 7 [1 day post-election]: By 3:00 A M on this day, the county boards of elections must submit to the Department of State returns received from the judges of election for each office for which a candidate must file a nomination petition with the SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
- Nov 9 [3 days post-election]: On this day, the Return Boards meet at 9:00 A M to canvass and compute the votes cast at the November election.
- Nov 12 [6 days post-election]: Last day for the county boards of elections to receive proof of identifcation that can be verified from an absentee elector whose proof of identification was not provided with the application or could not be verified by the board.
- Nov 13: [7 days post-election]: A valid military-overseas ballot cast under section 3609 of UMOVA, 25 Pa C S § 3509, must be delivered by 5:00 P M to the address specified by the county board of elections, to be counted.
- Nov 14 [8 days post-election]: On this day, the Return Boards meet to canvass absentee ballots received from military and overseas electors.
- Nov 26 [20 days post-election]: Last day to file petitions to contest the election of any candidate. Last day for the county boards of elections to file with the SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH returns from the November election. On this day, candidates receiving tie votes at the election shall cast lots at 12 Noon before the SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH or the county boards of elections, as the case may be, to determine the winner (If the fact of the tie vote is not authoritatively determined until after November 23, the time for casting lots will be 12 Noon on the second day after the fact of such tie is determined).
PA election law also states that “the Secretary of the Commonwealth shall [...] proclaim the results of primaries and elections, and issue certificates of election to the successful candidates at such elections.” It is less specific about the date by which this must be done, but as you can see from the bullet list above there are at least three weeks worth of preliminaries required before it can normally happen.
That’s especially important in a hotly contested election such as last night’s, where only a few hundred votes separate the candidates.
The Pennsylvania Secretary of State decides when the election results are “official”. Not NBC. Not CNN. Not Fox. And certainly not Vox.
Disclaimer: According to Forbes, Daily Kos CEO Markos Moulitsas is a founder and part-owner of Vox Media .