“The basic issue is whether or not there could be a political climate developing that could cause the state legislature to distrust the popular vote to repudiate it,” Foley said, recalling the 2000 presidential election dispute in Florida, in which the U.S. Supreme Court eventually declared George W. Bush the winner. “[Democratic candidate Al] Gore ultimately accepted the Supreme Court decision,” Foley said. “He didn’t have to.”

Pushing For Change

Thirty-four states allow election officials to begin “processing” absentee ballots prior to Election Day, according to NCSL. While that means different things in different states, it generally includes opening the outer envelopes, verifying signatures and scanning bar codes. Some states allow removal of the ballots from the inner envelopes and preparation for counting (smoothing ballots and arranging them face up for feeding into counting machines).

On the opposite end, Massachusetts, Maryland and Mississippi don’t allow the processing to begin until the polls close.

In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Judith Schwank, a Democrat who spearheaded a previous move in Pennsylvania for mail-in voting without an excuse, says the legislature should move on pre-canvassing as well.

“I’m worried that so much doubt has been cast in the public’s mind,” she said in a phone interview. “It will work, it can work, it’s just that counting can take a long time. I’m on the ballot too, but I’m not so worried about my election — that will probably be resolved within a week. But the president … it’s a threat to democracy.”

Pennsylvania state Sen. Steve Santarsiero, a Democrat, is gathering cosponsors for a bill to allow a 21-day pre-canvassing period. In his letter urging his peers to sign on, Santarsiero said “counties have struggled to process and tally ballots in a timely way.”

He noted that by June 9, the date of the letter, a number of counties still had not completed the count from the June 2 primary in which 1.8 million Pennsylvanians requested ballots. It took almost two weeks for Pennsylvania to count all the primary ballots.

In a phone interview, Santarsiero said it would not surprise him if the general election took even longer to count. He suggested this was not a partisan issue. “I can’t understand how anyone could come to the conclusion that this is advantaging one side or the other.”

But Pennsylvania’s Republicans don’t seem enthused.