Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot system has a problem − but it’s not what Trump is making unfounded claims about

Protesters in support of counting all the mail-in votes gather outside of the Philadelphia Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2020. Chris McGrath via Getty Images by Daniel J. Mallinson, Penn State Mail-in voting in Pennsylvania will not begin on Sept. 16, 2024, as was previously slated. Due to ongoing court cases, the past is poised to repeat itself in the commonwealth in the upcoming presidential election. Legal battles over Pennsylvania’s election system drew national attention in 2020 as former President Donald Trump and his allies in the state leveraged quirks of the system to sow doubt about the results of the election. Trump is setting the stage to do the same in 2024. On Sept. 8, 2024, he posted to Truth Social declaring that a Tucker Carlson interview revealed that “20% of the Mail-in Ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent.” He called for the U.S. attorney general, the FBI and Pennsylvania Republicans to do something about it. Trump PA Ballot Post. coreyryung.bsky.social/bsky Given the decentralized nature of elections administration in the United States, every state – and even county – has its own rules for ballot counting and voting. As an associate professor of public policy who closely follows Pennsylvania politics,...