Pennsylvania can reduce costs and increase voter convenience by creating a permanent absentee voting list, where voters can sign up to automatically be sent an absentee ballot for each election without having to re-apply. Expanding Pennsylvania’s permanent absentee option to all residents and making the list truly permanent, rather than from year to year, would save the state significant expenses by cutting down on the requests it needs to process.

Pennsylvania already has some drop boxes and election office drop off, adding more drop boxes and polling place drop off would further lessen the reliance on the postal service and increase voter convenience and confidence. We also recommend including provisions to allow for ballots to be received at polling places and other locations deemed necessary by clerks.

As use of absentee ballots increases, it is important to make sure that the ballots received are being filled out by the individuals they were sent to. Signature verification procedures ensure the security of the election process while also streamlining ballot processing.

In the event that a voter’s ballot is rejected, said voter should have the ability to cure any correctable issues with their ballot quickly and simply to lower rejection rates. As more voters use absentee ballots and, understandably, the number of rejected absentee ballots increases, we recommend implementing a Text2Cure system that allows voters to cure their ballots from their phones.

Accepting ballots with Election Day postmarks is a best practice to ensure that voters are given all options to vote their ballot in a timely manner. Pennsylvania already has Election Day postmark acceptance for overseas and military voters. The State also had an election day postmark acceptance policy as a temporary measure for the November election; we recommend making this policy permanent. We recommend that, not only does a state allow the physical postmark on a ballot, but that it also integrate into the USPS system for electronic postmarks.

Ballot tracking software such as Ballot Scout or Ballot TRACE can be a very cost effective tool to improve Pennsylvania's current ballot tracking and increase voter confidence. An expanded notification system helps keep rejection rates low and increases voter confidence and participation.

With a drastic increase in mail ballots, Pennsylvania has a great opportunity to reach for the gold standard of post-election security by implementing risk limiting audits. While Pennsylvania currently has some RLAs, they are being done on a pilot basis. NVAHI recommends Pennsylvania require RLAs in all counties. Pennsylvania’s data infrastructure would be further improved by implementing automatic and same day voter registration. Both of these would ensure that any eligible resident who wants to cast a ballot in an election can, regardless of whether they have submitted their registration forms on time.

Processing mail ballots to get them ready for counting before election day will help Pennsylvania get faster election results. Preliminary data also suggests that preprocessing helps avoid any blue or red shifts when there are differences in the partisan lean of mail vs. in person ballots, which could increase voter confidence in the results of elections.