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Election 2024 Pennsylvania Voting
People wait in line outside the Bucks County government building to apply for an on-demand mail ballot on the last day to request one in Doylestown, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Catalini)

A clumsy early voting option has backed up election offices in Pennsylvania and frustrated voters

A clumsy and time-consuming early voting option in the nation’s biggest presidential battleground state is creating frustration

By MIKE CATALINI
Published - Oct 29, 2024, 07:18 PM ET
Last Updated - Dec 16, 2024, 05:52 PM EST

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A clumsy and time-consuming early voting option in the nation's biggest presidential battleground state is creating frustration, leading to hours-long lines and prompting claims of disenfranchisement as voters swamp county offices that are not prepared to handle the influx.

The confusion is partly a result of a Pennsylvania law passed just before the pandemic, and partly from crowds of Republican voters heeding calls by their party and former President Donald Trump to vote early. Trump's entreaties to his supporters to cast ballots before the Nov. 5 election come after he repeatedly attacked forms of early voting in previous years.

In the seat of suburban Philadelphia’s Bucks County, often seen as a political bellwether, voters waited up to three hours on Tuesday, the final day to apply for a mail ballot.

Why the change from four years ago when relatively few voters tried to apply for early ballots in-person?

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