Years and one day ago went to the polls to eagerly cast their very first ballot in the november 2, 1920 president ial election. They did not take their vote for granted or believe it did not matter. They fought so hard and endured so much to obtain it. To wait inmen had extraordinarily long time to vote, 144 years after the birth of our democracy. Many other americans had to wait even longer. Last year, i was incredibly of myd to join 17 National Association of secretaries of state colleague on a journey to selma, birmingham, and montgomery, alabama, to share, witness, and try to absorb the historical moment and landmarks that epitomized the devastating struggle and inspiring achievement of the Voting Rights movement. These civil rights struggles and victories help persuade president johnson to sign the Voting Rights act of 1965, finally ensuring Voting Rights for all americans. Thanks to the giants of suffragists in the civil rights movement, we have been granted the opportunity and responsibility to make a difference in this world and to leave it a better place. Today, lets honor their sacrifices by voting and participating in our great democracy. If you have not already done so, please vote. If you are a male ballot voter, returned your alec in person now. If youre planning to vote at the polls, go now. The clock is ticking. You have only hours left to exercise your precious right to vote, let your voice be heard as a suffragist and civil rights activist would want you to. I have the latest numbers to share with you. I will go right to the mail in and absentee ballots. As of the final numbers for the absentee and mailing applications statewide, 3 ,098,947. The ballots are in the process this may be slightly delayed. I am guessing nearly all of them re. Are. Brokenpy to say we have 2. 5 million. Ballots have already been returned as of early this morning. That is over 81 of the ballots out there. One millionmillion, 641,826 are democratic. 586,336 republican voters. Are independents and other parties. Context, wetoric will end up somewhere around 2. 6 million, which is literally 10 times as many ballots has were cast by mail in 2016. 266,000 absentee cast. Ts ba know, the polls are open and safe. Pennsylvanias begin opening at 7 00 a. M. I heard this morning some people were lining up shortly after 6 00 a. M. The engagement was high from early this morning, which is great. The polls will remain open until 8 00 p. M. If a voter is in line at 8 00 p. M. , they can vote. It does not matter how long the line is, they should stay there and they will be able to vote. We expect a very healthy turnout given the intense interest in the selection this election. Voters can find their polling places at votepa. Com. They should wear a mask to protect themselves and others and practice social distancing of the polls. Masks, gloves, disinfectant spray, sneeze guards, tape to mark social distance. The polling places will be safer all pennsylvanians. Are only a few hours left to return a mailin ballot. Anyone who is not returned the ballot, should do so now. You should handdeliver. Do not put it in the mail. Delivered to your county election office, satellite election office, or other designated dropoff locations. I urge everyone not to wait until close to the 8 00 p. M. Deadline. Some drop boxes and satellite offices will not be open until 8 00. You should absolutely go to votepa. Com to check the hours of the dropboxes in your county. Unlike when you are in line at 8 00 p. M. At the polls where you have the right to vote, if you are in line at 8 00 p. M. At a drop off, it is not the same thing. The drop boxes will be closed and locked at 8 00 p. M. Dont cut it close. Drop it off early, early, early. I think i said this already but voters can find their countys return locations and hours at votepa. Com. Thered mail ballots has been some social media. I want to make that clear. You cannot bring your mail ballot and cast it at a polling place. Is surrenderdo your mail ballot and vote by regular Voting System. If you are looking to cast your ballot, you can only do it on the designated locations by the county. As we have been saying, voters need to make sure they are not returning a naked ballot. Ballots need to be sealed inside the secrecy envelope in the secrecy envelope is in the outer decoration envelope readdressed to the county preaddressed to the county. Today throughrns various notifications, emailer otherwise they returned a naked ballot or perhaps forgot to sign their voter declaration, you can still go to the polls today invoke a provisional ballot. I urge anyone if they get a notification that it was not counted for a reason other than through eligibility. If you are eligible but left out the secrecy envelope or Something Like that, you can still vote by provisional ballot. Votersto remind all whether youre voting by mail or ballots areat some twosided. Remember to look at both sides of your ballot. Just a reminder, under pennsylvania law voters have to return their own ballots. You cannot return a valid with your spouse or friend. The only exception is for voters with a disability who have designating an agent to do this for them. There is a special form for that or if theyotepa. Com, needed an emergency ballot. The agent can pick up the ballot and return them. Briefly, voters who have changed their mind and decided they wanted to vote in person instead, thats fine. Motors can take their mail bit voters can take their mailin ballot to the putting place voting place, wait in line and say i want to surrender by mail ballot and vote on the regular Voting System. The poll worker will take your ballot, void it, you will sign the declaration and then can vote on a regular Voting System like any other voter. If you dont have the ballot in envelope with you, you can vote with a provisional ballot. Get in line until the coworker you will pluck poll worker you applied for a valid. They will allow you to vote with a provisional ballot. You will be counted as long as you have not voted by some other means. Ok. Mailed theirve ballot are not eligible. Pennsylvania does not allow people to change their minds. Once you voted you cannot change her mind in remote. Revote. Voter rights. I want to remind everyone going to the poll said that only firsttime voters were those voting for the first time in their precinct must show id. If a voters name is not in the poll book and they are told they registered in a different precinct, if it is possible, they should go to that correct polling place. That way they can be assured the vote will count. If they cant, they dont have time to go somewhere else, they can vote by provisional ballot. The ballot will be counted for all the races the voter is eligible for. Voters who move within pennsylvania but did not have a chance to update their address and time before the election can still go back to their old polling place one more time to vote. If you have moved, you can go back to your old place if you have not registered at the new place. But i want to vote here one more time. They will ask you to update your address at the polling place. If 50 to remind voters or more of the Voting Systems at your polling place are not working, voters have the right to vote on an emergency paper ballot. It allows you to not have to wait if the systems are broken. You can vote with the emergency paper ballot and they will be counted like a regular ballot. If a voter is challenged on the basis of identity or residency, the voter may vote normally by sending a challenge affidavit in front of a witness who can vouch for them. If the voter cannot or does not want to use a witness, they can cast a provisional ballot. I want to be clear the only basis for challenge our identity or residency or qualifications for your precinct. Types ofy limited the things you can be challenged on. Voters have a right to assistance at the polling places, including language and literacy assistance, and for voters with disabilities. Experiences intimidation, harassment, or determination should reported to the county board of elections, the local district attorneys office, and call the tollfree number of the department of state. Votespa. 8002533931. Election returns. Displayed election data at electionreturns. Pa. Gov, thatding an update itemizes those cast at the precinct and provisional ballots. We created a supplemental dashboard to show the progress of ballots not yet counted. This is broken down by county. A demo is available on votepa. Com. That will be updated throughout the night. With countyaborate election offices to post results as soon as they are available after the polls close. That will include the itemized results i talked about in the dashboard will show you not only what has been counted but what remains to be counted so you can track that for the entire canvassing period. Ballots will be started until later. Dont be surprised if on the provisional ballot page you see zeros because they will get to the other ones first. Also, just a reminder, you have heard me say this a lot of times. Finished vote counting is never finished, ever on election day. If we stopped counting ballots on election day, we will be disenfranchising all the men and women who serve our country, all the military overseas voters who ballots must be accepted until seven days after the election. I know none of us want to disenfranchise all the military overseas voters, and the millions of other pennsylvanian voters who have exercised their fundamental right to vote. We are the only ones who can actually declare a result of an election, or in election count being over. Patients. Everybody should have patience. We expect the overwhelming majority of ballots to be counted within a few days. Our First Priority in the countys First Priority is to accurately and securely count every legal ballot cast. And then count them as quickly as humanly possible. You heard me talk about this before. Many counties will be counting 24 7 to get this done as quickly as humanly possible. Their dedication and commitment is just outstanding. We will be Holding Press Conferences at 9 00 p. M. At 11 00 p. M. Tonight at the farm show complex. We sent out media advisories on the press conferences last night and this morning. Please check the advisory for details and rsvp information. I hope to see you there later. I want to take a moment once again to tremendously think all of our election personnel from all around the state. From county election directors to pull workers, from boards of election to those canvassing the mail ballots. They are all, every one of them heroes. Without them we would have no democracy. Who would not have the ability to exercise our fundamental right to vote. Please, today, take a moment and think a poll worker. Thank election worker. Make sure they know how much all of us appreciate all they do to ensure we can exercise our right and express our voice in this great democracy we have. Thank you. Now i am happy to take your questions. Thank you, secretary. Couple of reminders. Each east reporter reporter limit themselves to one question. Rcp,u indicated on your screening these indicate who you are. If you dont have your name as a screen name you probably will not be called on. And then the ap to mark from bloomberg. The Trump Campaign and republicans are making a number of allegations about voting in philadelphia, including that trump poll watchers are being blocked from polling places. Poll watchers are being cap far away from county to tables. Democratic electioneering. Have you gotten any of these reports . That you investigated any of them and found them to be accurate or inaccurate . Thank you. Sec. Boockvar i have not gotten any of those reports. Sure we follow up with philadelphia and others to make sure we have the updated information. That is the first im hearing of it. I should be clear. I have not heard from voters or from anyone. That and ick in on will report back later. Thank you, secretary. Mark from Bloomberg News at this time. Next up will be christine from penn live. Sowith it when he percent or 20 or so applications not returned, is there a way to suss out how many are voters who might show up at the polls and cemented their ballots and want to vote provisionally versus ballots that might still be arriving by mail . Sec. Boockvar shirt. Sure. What i will tell you is im glad you brought it up. The percentages are misleading in some ways when you were not aware of what the usual is. Way looked before the primary at prior elections. About that historically 70 to 80 of the ballots mailed to voters were cast by voters. That is the normal and regular years. I think in the primary it was somewhere just short of 80 . Primaryround 80 in the extension oft week mail delays for the counties that had been experiencing civil unrest. Even with the extra week and ended up somewhere right around 80 were just short of that. We have already exceeded that, far exceeded the average and was to have all day today. The numbers i gave you were from very early this morning. Receivede have already higher than average numbers based on those percentages of what we would expect to be cast by mail, which is great. I do think there is probably a fair number of voters who requested their valid just in case to protect the option but will show up in person. We are very pleased. We will obviously have updated numbers after the deadline closes. Then the late arriving ballots as well. Just as of this morning we are in a very good percentage of the voters have already returned them. We have christine from penn live and then build from the altoona mariner. Bill from the altoona mariner. Christine, t should be able to unmute . Sorry. Thank you. I was wondering if you could give us a rundown on problems that have been reported. I understand there is a hotline. Is there a way to break down what we have been hearing . Somebody said there was a problem with machines. What are you hearing . Debbie, are you unmute it . Can you hear me ok . I will try to give an overview. The Biggest Issue seems to be fairly typical and high polling places that open late for one reason or another. Pull workers having trouble getting the Voting Systems up and running. A lot of times it is just the pull workers arriving late at the polling place. You mentioned lucerne county. We did hear of some Voting System issues and one precinct in luzern county. The majority of our issue so far today seem to be polling places that did not open late or got off to a slow start because of some technical issues or some confusion from the pull workers poll workers. We have gotten complaints about Political Science being perhaps closer to the entrance of the room where voting occurs than what they are supposed to be. I apologize, secretary. We did get one report so far through social media, poll watchers. It was allegedly prevented from entering a polling place in philadelphia. We reached out to the county and understand the county was getting in contact with the polling place to confirm and verify that poll watcherss credentials. Thank you. Bill from the altoona mirror, and then alana i abramson from time magazine. Can you talk about the possible consequences if the Supreme Court rules ballots in today . The possibility that might affect overseas and military valves. Sec. Boockvar you cut out a little bit. How can yous ask your question again . Can you hear me now . Sec. Boockvar it was just choppy. Can you talk about the possible consequences should the u. S. Supreme court take up the matter of the threeday grace period and rule that mailin ballots after 8 00 p. M. Today are invalid . Especially given the possibility overseas and military ballots have never been due until a week after today. Sec. Boockvar gotcha. Thank you. The u. S. Supreme courts decision will not impact overseas and military voters. They were not part of the lawsuit with the extension of time due to mail delays. The pennsylvania Supreme Court let me be clear it will not shorten any timeframe for military and overseas voters. One of the reasons we have been urging voters to get their ballots in by today is to avoid their being any significant numbers that come in after today. Until we know what those numbers are it is hard to know what exactly the impact would be. T guidance to the counties that they should keep them segregated. It could be very clean and easy to distinguish those ballots. They will be counted the decision would only impact some federal races in any event. No matter what those ballots are being counted and they will be are being counted for the purpose of state races and possibly other races. It is only limited numbers of federal races that would be impacted. We have to see what kind of numbers come in and what the Supreme Court says if they take it up again or not. From time magazine, and then todd barclay from williamsport. Thank you for doing the call. I was about to ask about lucerne county but thats been answered. Can you provide data tomorrow on the number of ballots that have been rejected for any reason and the number of voters able to take care of them or cast provisional ballots . Sec. Boockvar that will probably take more time than tomorrow. Deputy secretary, i dont know if you have a general timeframe for when we would normally get a sense of rejected balance from the counties, or is that on the same timeframe as the canvas in general . I cant say exactly when people get final numbers but we have preliminary numbers based on what the counties are recording in the system when they record ballots. To the extent there i they are adjudicating some ballots, we may not know the final number for several days. The second part of the question, provisional ballots. We will have an unofficial number of those as well. Provisional ballots are actually canvassed at a hearing several days after an election. We may have a high level count but we are not necessarily going to know which ones are fully counted and which ones are partially counted and which ones are not counted at all until the counties certify those numbers to us. Thank you. Williamsporttalk and next up is Cynthia Fernandez from spotlight pa. Good morning, secretary. Theve a question regarding trailing numbers over the last 14 days in covid19 cases. It is just north of 27,000 people. If they were all contact traced, roughly 20 folks is the average, that is over half a million pennsylvanians who may be impacted with covid19 quarantine. There was a letter that normally goes out and a phone call from the department of health that would tell people to be in qua