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Election 2020: Both Registrations And Mail-In Voting Up In Pennsylvania

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- With three weeks before the deadline, more than two million Pennsylvanians have already applied for mail-in ballots.

That was just one of several topics addressed by the state's top election official on Wednesday. With Pennsylvania being a key battleground state for the presidency, this fact may be no surprise.

"We think that our total voter registration may be at an all-time high," says Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar.

Nearly nine million Pennsylvanians have registered to vote and 2.5 million have applied for mail-in ballots.

voting
(Photo Credit: KDKA)

"We had nearly 1.5 million vote in the primary by mail, so we already have a million more applications than those that voted by mail in the primary," noted Boockvar.

Boockvar says 96 percent of applications have been processed with ballots mailed or soon to go out. And after the weekend computer outage, votespa.com is up and running.

"We have no evidence of malicious interference, and no data was lost. That's continuously backed up all the time," Boockvar said.

On the legal front, Boockvar has asked the state Supreme Court to prevent any ballots from being invalidated just because a voter's signature has changed over time.

Boockvar also warned against voter intimidation, illegal under state and federal law and she cited some examples.

"Photographing or videotaping voters, disseminating false or misleading election information, blocking the entrance to a polling place, confronting, hovering or directly speaking to or questioning voters, any threatening behavior, asking voters for documentation -- none of these are acceptable," she said.

Voters have until Oct. 27 to apply for a mail-in ballot, but Boockvar says don't wait that long. Click here for more.

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