Election Workers Face Pressure as Philadelphia Prepares

Philadelphia election workers are preparing materials for 1,700 precincts as they face threats, long shifts and pressure from Washington over mail voting. More than 12 million votes had already been cast nationwide, including more than 65,000 in the city, while workers assembled poll books, rule books, posters and pens in a Northeast Philadelphia warehouse.

The Work Behind the Ballot

Lisa Deeley, a Philadelphia City Commissioner, called the packages “election activity boxes.” Omar Sabir, chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, said he was “Born ready.” The city’s three elected commissioners—two Democrats and a Republican—run elections in Pennsylvania’s largest city.

Deeley said the commissioners’ work was “more as nonpartisan than bipartisan” and described their job as “to be umpires, to call balls and strikes.” Seth Bluestein, a Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner, said, “Running elections in Philadelphia doesn't require democratic values or Republican values. It requires American values.”

Election-day shifts start early. Poll workers report at 6:00 a.m., and some stay past 9:00 p.m. The city had 7,200 people signed up, short of its goal of 8,000. Shanna Fields, who oversees poll worker training for the Office of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, said, “We really need willing participants who really will care about democracy and care about the work that we do.” Some poll workers have Fields’ personal cell number. “We're like 911 for them,” she said.

Hundreds of voting machines stood ready for delivery to polling places. They have no Internet connection. After polls close, officials bring results back to the warehouse and transfer counts by secure compact discs to another computer for public release. Officials audit the results after counting and start preparing for the next election almost immediately.

Mail Ballots and Federal Pressure

Pennsylvania law bars officials from starting the pre-canvass until election morning, when polls open at 7:00 a.m. Until then, officials can't review outer envelopes, open envelopes or prepare ballots for counting. Each mail ballot sits sealed inside two envelopes.

Philadelphia processed about 375,000 mail ballots in 2020, involving more than a million pieces of paper. Counting went on until the Saturday after Election Day. Deeley said, “We will never sacrifice accuracy for speed, and we never have. And since 2020, we have only gotten better.” For the election covered in the report, ballots were being mailed back and would stay in a locked cage until processing began on Election Day morning. Officials hoped to finish counting by midday Wednesday.

Trump has singled out Philadelphia in every campaign since he became a candidate in 2016. Two days after the 2020 election, as the city’s mail-ballot count cut into his lead in Pennsylvania, he called Detroit and Philadelphia “two of the most corrupt political places anywhere in our country.” On Election Day 2024, he posted that there was “massive cheating” in Philadelphia. City officials said there were no substantive fraud complaints. The report said Philadelphia has had a handful of prosecuted fraud cases, the largest involving about four dozen votes, and no widespread documented fraud in a presidential general election.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in voting is rife with fraud and pushed federal legislation to overhaul elections. In March, he signed an executive order that would have restricted whom the Postal Service could deliver mail ballots to, but the Supreme Court blocked it from taking effect for the midterms. The order also directed the attorney general to investigate and potentially prosecute state and local officials who issue ballots to ineligible people.

Threats and Election-Day Safeguards

Bluestein and Deeley said they received death threats and harassment in 2020. During the global pandemic, Deeley left her home and lived in a hotel as protesters gathered on both sides at the Convention Center. She said she now had to consider whether the president might press to have her charged for doing her job.

The president and his administration have sent mixed messages about whether federal agents would go to polling places on Election Day. Bluestein said Pennsylvania law doesn't allow officers or federal agents within 100 feet of polling places. He said the city had worked with its law department on a plan for problems, including possible federal involvement, and had to prepare for every possible scenario.

Deeley called the attacks on election infrastructure distracting and dangerous. She said they could erode confidence in voting and worried it could take decades to heal. She urged people who doubt the process to become poll workers. “Mail voting is safe and it's trusted,” she said. “This whole vote-by-mail rhetoric, again, dangerous.”