For months, election officials in Pennsylvania have repeated the mantra that Tuesday is just like any other Election Day.

Dedicated election workers have spent months preparing for this moment. They processed thousands of voter registration and mail ballot applications. They hired poll workers.

And the doors open to voters at 7 a.m., although a few polling places will inevitably be delayed when the lights don’t work or the doorman forgets to arrive early.

Officials will begin processing mail ballots at 7 a.m. At 20:00, they will start reporting the results as the feedback comes in.

They do this every year. Twice a year.

But it is an inevitable fact that 2024 will be unlike any other election.

“We know the eyes of the world will be on Philadelphia,” Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, told reporters before touring Philadelphia’s counting center 10 days before the election.

Polls persistently predict presidential race between Vice President and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump Pennsylvania will be decided by razor-thin margins, and there’s a very real possibility that the race could hinge on results in the state.

Moreover, in the week leading up to the election, Trump and his allies made the state the epicenter of election-related misinformation and unfounded allegations of malfeasance.

While Pennsylvania election officials have made major strides over the past four years to speed up vote-by-mail counting, it could still be days before officials finish counting the lion’s share of ballots in the state. And if the race is close, that will mean it will be clear which presidential candidate carries the state.

“Overall, it’s very similar to what it was four years ago, but we have much more experienced staff,” said Board Chairman Bob Harvie. Bucks County Electoral College.

” READ MORE: What might the high in-person turnout Pa. is expecting on Tuesday mean for lines and reporting results?

Misinformation, lawsuits and 24-hour work

The road to the 2024 election is obscured by the memory of 2020, when Pennsylvania did not count enough ballots for the state to be called by the Saturday after the race, and Trump and his allies spent that time spreading lies about voter fraud. A lot of meaningless lawsuits are being filed against the state.

Misinformation and lawsuits have already weighed heavily on the 2024 elections.

Election officials across the state have faced dozens of lawsuits, some legitimate, some less legitimate.

In the days leading up to Nov. 5, Trump and his allies created a sense of chaos surrounding the election in Pennsylvania. They alleged that election officials suppressed voters by cutting lines for optional mail-in voting earlier in the day and continued to offer voters the chance to apply for a mail-in ballot they could receive later; The campaign then filed a lawsuit and voted on demand. Voting has been extended in Bucks County. They claimed that counties facing hundreds of fraudulent voter registration applications were actually dealing with thousands of fraudulent ballots.

A week before the election, Trump told Truth Social that “Pennsylvania was cheating at a level never seen before and got caught.”

Confusion arose as a result; officials worry that if Trump loses, he could sow conspiracy theories and distrust in the election.

“Donald Trump has made it clear that he will target Pennsylvania voters and sow doubt in an attempt to overturn the election results,” said Committee Chairman Neil Makhija. Montgomery County Electoral College.

Days before the election, right-wing activists filed thousands of baseless objections to mailing ballot applications; This created further confusion ahead of the election and likely caused the counting of ballots submitted by these voters to be delayed.

Authorities expect misinformation to continue, along with harassment and threats against local officials.

“We take pride in our work and I have the utmost confidence in our staff and our ability to achieve this. What really surprises me is the criticism, the misinformation and the lies,” said Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley, a Democrat.

But officials sought to put those concerns to rest heading into Election Day as they prepared to conduct an election Tuesday with votes that matter as much as they do in other elections.

“Despite all the negativity, frustrations and politics, people fundamentally accept that the right to vote is something sacred, something that should be celebrated,” Makhija said.

They worked hard to ensure that voters’ votes counted. And the election would be fair.

“People in Philadelphia take your elections seriously, and this will be a safe place to vote. This is where democracy was born, and I’ll be damned if democracy dies on my watch,” Omar Sabir, chairman of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, said at a news conference at the counting center 10 days before the election.

” READ MORE: How Trump and his X allies are flooding Pennsylvania with lies in the final week of the presidential campaign.

A rigorous and long timeline

Pennsylvania election workers will work around the clock Tuesday until every ballot is counted and processed. The exact procedures and machines used will vary by county, as will the point at which the work is completed.

Poll workers will open the doors of polling places across the state at 7 a.m. and invite voters to vote in person in what is expected to be the highest turnout election since 2016.

Simultaneously, election officials in all 67 Pennsylvania counties will begin slicing open the thousands of mail-in ballots that have already been returned, flattening the pages and scanning them into machines where the results can be tabulated. As of Monday morning, nearly 1.8 million ballots had been returned statewide.

Ballots that are undated, unsigned or do not have a privacy envelope will be cancelled.

Officials will begin posting results on county websites shortly after 8 p.m. Election workers will continue counting results, including in-person and mail-in votes, until every vote received has been counted.

While the vast majority of in-person ballots should be counted by the end of the night, counties will likely continue processing mail ballots until Wednesday or later.

Even after these votes are counted, the election is not certified. Election officials in each county will meet to formally vote on how to handle ballots that were set aside due to problems with identification, missing dates and missing signatures. They will also vote on which provisional ballots will be counted. There is until November 12 to return overseas ballot papers.

If the race is close, these are ballot measures that could result in extensive litigation with each side trying to maximize its vote count. Counties have until Nov. 25 to certify their results.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State speaking to reporters a week before the election Al Schmidt He noted that election workers will continue counting votes even after news organizations call the race.

“In every county I’ve been in, the people responsible for running the elections were professional officials,” Schmidt said. “They will do what they need to do to comply with Pennsylvania election law to make sure their voters’ votes are counted.”