After chaotic 2020 process, Pennsylvania still won't have midterm results on the day of the election

Pennsylvania during the 2022 midterms will once again fail to produce election results on election day itself, a shortfall the secretary of state's office is blaming on a recently passed law that fails to permit pre-election counting of mail-in ballots. 

Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman said in a briefing on Tuesday that state officials are anticipating "that once again Pennsylvania will not have unofficial results on election night."

Chapman pointed to the state's Act 88, passed earlier this year, which directed counties to "pre-canvass mail-in ballots starting at 7 a.m. on election day, and continuously count mail-in ballots starting at the close of the polls."

"Nonetheless, Act 88 didn't implement the one reform that would have had the biggest impact on allowing Pennsylvania to have results sooner, providing for pre-canvassing of mail-in ballots before election day," Chapman claimed. 

The secretary said pre-canvassing prior to election day is "common in other states" and that Pennsylvania's delay in results "does not mean anything that nefarious is happening."

The state was the subject of intense criticism and scrutiny during the hotly contested 2020 elections, when it failed to produce tallies of votes for days following the close of polls on Nov. 3. 

Now-President Joe Biden had been considerably behind then-President Donald Trump in vote totals at the close of polls, but a long series of outstanding ballots from heavily Democratic areas eventually pushed Biden over the top, with his win in that state securing him the election that year.