The Republican on the board who oversees Philadelphia elections is not letting an attack on his integrity by incumbent President Donald Trump. “People should be mindful that there are bad actors who are lying to them, and they need to turn to people that they trust … and not nonsense included in lawsuits or anything else like that.”

“I have seen the most fantastical things on social media, making completely ridiculous allegations that have no basis in fact at all and see them spread,” City Commissioner Al Schmidt told John Berman on “New Day” Wednesday.

President Donald Trump, who has been making unfounded claims about fraud, attacked Schmidt on Twitter, calling him a “RINO,” or a “Republican in name only.”

However, Al Schmidt told CNN that fraud evidence brings consequences. “We take a look at it and we refer it to law enforcement, as we always do in every election.”

You can read: Erie postal worker admits making up ballot tampering claims

“I realize a lot of people are happy about this election and a lot of people are not happy about this election. One thing I can’t comprehend is how hungry people are to consume lies and to consume information that is not true,” he said.

Al Schmidt said his office looked into a list of dead people who allegedly voted in Philadelphia and discovered that “not a single one of them voted in Philadelphia after they died.”

 Stay focused

The Commisioner told CNN that Philadelphia election workers still have 18,000 mail-in ballots and about 18,000 provisional ballots left to count.

“It’s important that we all stay focused on our job, which is counting votes, cast on or before Election Day by eligible voters, which is something that should not be controversial,” Schmidt said.

The post Al Schmidt: “We had the most transparent and secure election in the history of Philadelphia” appeared first on El Sol News Media.

Meanwhile, a USPS spokesperson said the agency is “unaware of any significant delays or issues.”

According to data provided by WHYY, over 40,000 registered voters in the county requested mail ballots. However, so far, only 24% of them have been returned to the county. This is by far the lowest rate among the state’s 67 counties. The county with the next-lowest return rate, Fayette, has received 50% of requested ballots.

Butler County Commissioner Leslie Osche said in an interview that County officials thought that the mail was slowed down due to high volume. But this week, county call centers and email addresses set up to handle elections issues were flooded with messages.

People must get their mail ballots

By Tuesday morning, officials abandoned any hope that the ballots would arrive and launched plans to get new ballots out to voters, Osche said. “Our main focus, because it’s too late now to worry about this, we need to make sure we get these people their mail ballots,” he added.

The exact amount of lost ballots remains under investigation, though Osche said she believes the number could be in the thousands. He said this considering the high volume of calls and emails related to missing ballots fielded by county officials during the past week.

You can read: Pennsylvania Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in mail-in ballots

New ballots have been mailed to voters living in the county and overnighted to anyone living out of state, like college students. In some circumstances, sheriff’s deputies are hand-delivering ballots, Osche said.

Osche and Butler County Commissioner Kevin Boozel, the only Democrat on the three-member board of commissioners, said that the Pennsylvania Department of State is aware of the problem and post office officials have been asked to look into what happened to the mail ballots once they left the county offices.

“I don’t want this investigated a month from now, I want it back now,” Boozel said. “This is an active investigation. I don’t know any more information than that. We have to trust the fact that it is being investigated by the United States Postal Service. ”

The post Potentially thousands of mail ballots lost in Pennsylvania county appeared first on El Sol News Media.

Gov. Wolf and legislative leaders had been negotiating as recently as Tuesday to change the election code after months of inaction. However, the General Assembly adjourned Wednesday and is not scheduled to reconvene until Nov. 10, a week after the election.

In adjourning the session, Republicans rejected the petitions from county election officials across the state. These claim that allowing them to open mail ballots before Election Day would reduce the administrative difficulties. Otherwise, the state could be counting millions of ballots for days after Nov. 3.

The collapse of the deal implies that the long process of counting mail ballots cannot begin until 7 a.m. on Election Day. This situation could leave the results unclear for days and giving space for candidates to falsely declare victory.

Wolf spokesperson Lyndsay Kensinger blamed the Republican leaders of failing to reach an agreement. “The Republican leadership of the General Assembly has failed to pass legislation to ensure that election results will be known promptly after the November 3rd presidential election,” she said.

Millions of mail ballots

Now county elections offices will face the task of quickly counting what the Pennsylvania Department of State estimates could be three million mail ballots.

House Republicans had passed a bill to the Senate that would have allowed counties three days before Election Day to count mail ballots. But it also would have also allowed partisan poll watchers to drive across the state and work in counties where they were not registered to vote.

You can read: Pennsylvania County will record mail-in ballot counting process

“The governor and the legislature spectacularly failed the voters by not coming to some sort of agreement on this issue,” Forrest Lehman, the director of elections in Lycoming County, said Wednesday night.

Counties big and small, led by Republicans and Democrats, he said, all agreed on the need to allow mail ballots to be processed before Election Day: “I feel like this was a historical moment. We really needed something from them, and they didn’t live up to the moment.”

The post Fails deal to open mail ballots in Pennsylvania before Election Day appeared first on El Sol News Media.