Inside the election warehouse: A look at Allegheny County’s vote counting process

With Election Day just four days away, Allegheny County officials are working hard to ensure accurate vote counting, especially after the recounts following the 2020 election. On Wednesday, The Pitt News toured the Allegheny Election Warehouse, where officials expect to process up to 952,305 ballots on Nov. 5.

“We want this process to be open to let people know what we’re doing,” Dave Voye, Allegheny Elections Division manager, said. “We want everything to be done and counted on time and counted correctly.” 

The warehouse at 901 Pennsylvania Ave. currently holds all 186,760 mail-in ballots received in Allegheny County so far, which are set to be tabulated starting no earlier than 7 a.m. on Election Day, as required by Pennsylvania law. Voye mentioned that starting tabulation earlier would “help out immensely.”

“We could have a whole crew here early, starting the whole process,” Voye said. “They could be doing the pre-canvassing, verifying signatures, sorting these envelopes and scanning.”

By law, county officials cannot present any election results until 8 p.m. on Election Day, but Voye is confident all mail-in and in-person ballots will be counted by midnight Tuesday. 

“Our goal is to have everything we have now counted by 8 o’clock,” assistant Elections Division manager Chet Harhut said. “We had a lot more mail-in ballots in 2020 because it was a Covid year.”

Two hundred and thirty Allegheny County employees specially trained to handle ballots and manage election procedures will work at the warehouse on election night. According to Voye, most workers have participated in many previous elections.

On Election Day, the county’s Bluecrest Vantage Mail Sorter will process and sort up to 50,000 mail-in ballot envelopes per hour.

“We use the machine to sort ballots, and it’s also our main letter opener on Election Day,” Harhut said. “At 7 a.m. on Election Day, we’ll be running [ballots] through as much as we can.”

Allegheny administrative services director Jessica Garofolo demonstrated how the county’s eight DS950 high-speed scanners work. She said the scanners process up to 280 ballots per minute and capture errors to ensure no ballot is double counted. 

“We have protocols in place to make sure staff aren’t double counting ballots,” Garofolo said. “We anticipate just a few hours to scan all the ballots.”

Ballots are reviewed by machines and staff to catch errors like missing signatures, incomplete information or a missing secrecy envelope. If an issue is found, the ballot is mailed back to the voter, who also receives an email notification.

“We check every ballot twice for accuracy. Once when they come in and once on Election Day,” Harhut said. “We do find bad ballots when they come in. They didn’t have dates, had the wrong dates or were naked … We give [the voter] the opportunity to fix them and send them back to us by Election Day.”

Voters can “cure” the issue by either mailing a corrected ballot or casting an in-person vote at their polling place on Election Day, Harhut said. As of Wednesday morning, 1,190 ballots had been returned to voters for curing and 738 had been cured.

Each polling place’s voting machine, all new as of 2020, is sealed for security before they get delivered to polling locations around the county. Each unit has the polling place’s blank ballots locked within to “verify accuracy and security”, according to Harhut.

“The keys to the machines are with our judge of elections over the weekend. They’re never with the machine,” Voye said. “But it’s just impossible to deliver every machine in one day.”

The warehouse has 67 surveillance cameras, with each entry point closely monitored. According to Voye, there will be a “full force” police presence at the warehouse on Election Day.

“Even before we started [receiving] mail-in ballots, there are security guards here 24/7,” Voye said. “On election night, there will be county police presence inside and out.” 

Ballot drop-off sites may be a specific concern to voters following reports of ballot boxes set on fire in Oregon. Voye said ballot return sites are secure, with three staff members working at each location at all times. 

“We have video surveillance on every site. Somebody can’t just walk up and throw their ballot in,” Harhut said. “We take [the ballot] from the voter, check it and put it in the box ourselves.”

Despite numerous recounts ordered after the 2020 presidential election, Voye said there have been no changes to this voting cycle’s processes.

“We’ve tweaked some of our procedures, but generally speaking, everything’s the same,” Voye said. “Using these in 2020, we kind of learned a few lessons.”

Although Voye is confident in the election processes, the department is still prepared to recount ballots. Voye reassured voters that their ballots are “in good hands”.

“We do all sorts of pre and post-election testing. We test every machine and replicate everything after the election to make sure everything is working properly,” Voye said. “Your ballot is tabulated correctly in this county. This is a very secure and safe process.”

According to Voye, Allegheny County’s results website will update every 15 minutes on election night, beginning at 9:30 p.m.