Pennsylvania - Allegheny County Department of Administrative Services Elections Division
Program Title
Pre-Canvassing Precision
Program Summary
After becoming familiar with no-excuse mail-in balloting in 2020, Allegheny County began revising their pre-canvassing workflow within a (former) industrial warehouse to maximize efficiencies. By purchasing equipment including a mail sorter/opener from Bluecrest, high speed ballot scanners from ES&S, provide pre-canvass procedure training, and investing time in preparing a floor plan footprint that follows a ballot from its' secure home under lock and key in a security cage, to being opened, secrecy envelopes removed, then those envelopes being opened again, and ballots extracted, flattened, and scanned, the pre-canvassing process was taken from a day's long task to a matter of hours. Since the primary election in 2021, Allegheny County has been able to complete pre-canvassing of over 100,000 mail-in and absentee ballots in approximately 8 hours. This timeline allows us to then post results (of absentee/mail-in ballots) shortly after the polls close at 8pm. Historically Allegheny County is the first in the state to post significant results.