Whoa.

In an email, Pennsylvania House GOP says negotiations over allowing counties to start processing and counting ballots before Election Day are essentially dead.

That keeps current law: Counties can’t open ballots until 7 a.m. Election Day.

“Given that the Governor has not put anything on the table that can get through our caucus and has once again removed himself from the process of discussing the issue, we have no plans at this time to consider changes to the Election Code that will affect the upcoming election.”

County elections offices are facing a flood of mail ballots, with the PA Department of State estimating three million votes — or more! — will be cast by mail.

It takes time to count those votes. Days.

Current law means that long process can’t start until 7 a.m. Election Day.

Stay tuned for more shortly from @CynthFernandez, who told us in this story last month that “the chances of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and GOP leadership reaching an agreement seem less likely than ever.” https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/spl/pa-election-november-mail-ballots-supreme-court-tom-wolf-20200918.html">https://www.inquirer.com/politics/...

Just getting caught up to the issue of counting mail ballots?

Start here: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/coronavirus-pa-mail-ballots-2020-election-results-20200522.html">https://www.inquirer.com/politics/...

What’s the real impact of a long count not starting until Election Day?

The results will (almost certainly) skew Republican at first, until mail ballots are counted. Meet the “blue shift”:
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-2020-election-blue-shift-20200127.html

The">https://www.inquirer.com/politics/... danger? False claims of victory. http://inquirer.com/politics/election/2020-presidential-election-pa-voting-problems-20200628.html">https://inquirer.com/politics/...