Philly to have 29 days of mail-in voting after new special elections scheduled

Philadelphia voters will have a smaller window of time for mail-in voting for the midterm elections after a bureaucratic logjam prevented Pennsylvania's largest city from implementing its original timeline. State law allows for mail-in voting as many as 50 days before the election, but Philly will have about 29.

According to Axios, four new special election matches for the City Council, that weren't planned or announced at the same time, slowed down Philly's ability to start sending out ballots as early as September 19th, as the ballots would be wrong.



In early September two special elections were announced but not scheduled, then the council president, Democrat Darrell Clarke, scheduled two more last week and planned them to be held during the midterms.

Because these elections were just announced, it pushes the city's ability to send out mail-in ballots back, as they would need to accurately reflect the election in November. Now Philadelphia is planning on sending out their ballots on the week of October 10.

Axios claims this means that there is a small "margin of error" when it comes to sending ballots to the right address and having voting machines ready and programmed in the span of 29 days, nearly a month's time. Axios cited "experts" such as Kallel Edwards, a state organizer for Black Voters Matter, who said, "still a lot of people that don’t know they have that [mail-in] option."

According to local news, City Councilmembers Maria Quiñones Sanchez of the 7th District and Cherelle Parker of the 9th District resigned their seats to run for mayor. These are the two slots that Clarke pushed for elections to replace.

Axios says that recently Mayor Jim Kenney vetoed a "routine" zoning bill that City Council wants to veto, but the Council must have at least 12 active members in order to do so.