Can your really change your vote in Pa?

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A voter in Philadelphia's 5th District casts her ballot in the solarium at Hopkinson House. (Emma Lee/WHYY)

A voter in Philadelphia's 5th District casts her ballot in the solarium at Hopkinson House. (Emma Lee/WHYY)

You can return a pair of pants that don’t fit, but can you take back a vote you’ve cast?

Millions of Americans have taken advantage of early voting, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been telling them if they’ve had a change of heart about voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton, they can change their vote.

Pennsylvania doesn’t have early voting like some states, but more than 300,000 people have applied for absentee ballots, and many have already submitted them.

A Trump staffer recently tweeted that you can change your absentee vote by calling a toll-free number, but it’s not so simple.

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You’re entitled to vote as an absentee in Pennsylvania if you can’t get to your polling place on Election Day.

This close to the election, there’s only one way for absentee voters who’ve already submitted a ballot to change course, said Deputy Secretary of State Marian Schneider.

“They can go to their polling place and void their absentee ballot and then vote normally in the polling place on Election Day,” she said.

Schneider said poll workers should easily flag the voter as someone who’s submitted an absentee ballot, so the ballot won’t  be opened or counted. But she advises any voter in that circumstance to let poll workers know.

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