FACT CHECK: Did A Pennsylvania Judge Rule That Ballots Would Be Accepted And Counted Until November 14?
A photo shared on Instagram claims a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that ballots could be counted and received up until Nov. 14, days after the 2022 midterms.
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Verdict: False
There is no evidence Pennsylvania has extended its voting deadline. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of State confirmed in an email to Check Your Fact that the claim is untrue.
Fact Check:
Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman won in a hotly-contested race, edging out Republican Senate candidate and former TV-personality Mehmet Oz, according to CNN. More than 95 percent of the vote has been counted as of Thursday morning, The New York Times reported.
The Instagram image shows a screengrab of a tweet claiming that Pennsylvania will now accept ballots past the original deadline. The statement was posted hours before polls closed on Nov. 8.
“ELECTION 2022. This just in: Pennsylvania Judge allows ballots to count that are received up until November 14th. This is unconstitutional,” the image’s text reads.
This claim is baseless. The Philadelphia elections board voted to reinstate a security measure called poll book reconciliation, according to NBC News. This process temporarily halts vote counting to scan books into the voting system to ensure that no one who voted in person had also voted by mail, the outlet reports.
“This is not true and is disinformation,” a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State confirmed in an email to Check Your Fact.
The deadline for both mail-in and in person ballots in Pennsylvania was 8 p.m. on Nov. 8, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. There is no evidence or announcement on its website indicating the date to turn ballots in was extended. (RELATED: Can Washington State Voters Cast Their Ballots Online?)
This is not the first time misinformation related to the 2022 midterm elections has spread. Check Your Fact recently debunked a claim that the U.S. military discovered proof of election fraud in Arizona after the midterms.
