DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A clumsy and time-consuming early voting option in the nation's biggest presidential battleground state is creating frustration, leading to hours-long lines and prompting claims of disenfranchisement as voters swamp county offices that are not prepared to handle the influx. The confusion is partly a result of a Pennsylvania law passed just before the pandemic, and partly from crowds of Republican voters heeding calls by their party and former President Donald Trump to vote early.
Trump's entreaties to his supporters to cast ballots before the Nov. 5 election come after he repeatedly attacked forms of early voting in previous years. In the seat of suburban Philadelphia’s Bucks County, often seen as a political bellwether, voters waited up to three hours on Tuesday, the final day to apply for a mail ballot.
Why the change from four years ago when relatively few voters tried to apply for early ballots in-person? “Because he told us to vote early. I was just trying to make it ‘too big to rig,'" said Marlene Burns, 52, repeating one of Trump's standard lines encouraging his supporters to vote. “So yeah, that’s why I’m voting at the courthouse and wanted to have my vote in person.
” The early voting angst is the latest dustup over voting in Pennsylvania , which has the largest trove of electoral votes of any battleground state and is by far the state most visited by the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets this year. The runup to Elec.