Why is it taking so maddeningly long to count votes in Pennsylvania? There’s one big, serious reason, and one little reason that’s kind of funny.
The big, not-funny reason: The Republican-held state legislature blocked Democrats from changing rules to allow early votes and mail-in ballots to be pre-processed—i.e., taken out of their envelopes and checked to make sure the right voter filled out the right ballot—for easier counting. The Philadelphia Inquirer just published a blow-by-blow of how that happened, going back to June; here’s the long and short of it:
• In June, with concerns growing that the pandemic would scare many people off from voting in person, the state House considered a bill that would allow pre-processing to begin three weeks before Election Day rather than on Election Day.