Philadelphia election officials struggle with storm, postal glitch

Philadelphia election officials failed to get all voter registration applications processed over the weekend.

City Commissioner Stephanie Singer had vowed that the work would be done by now.   Election officials are struggling to cope with bad weather and postal service glitches as the Nov. 6 election approaches.

The election watchdog group Committee of Seventy sounded an alarm last week because more than 20,000 voter registration applications had not been processed.

Singer said last Thursday Election Commision staff would get those applications processed over the weekend, but that didn’t happen. Singer said her staff had to deal with a large number of absentee ballot applications, and that slowed things down.

Singer said Monday she has a full staff working despite the hurricane and said the voter registrations should be processed by Tuesday.

Singer said her staff will send out voter registration cards as those applications are processed, but whether voters receive before the next Tuesday is up to the Postal Service and the impact of the storm.

She said if people don’t receive cards, they should proceed to the polls, where records of their registration should be intact.

Meanwhile, Singer said she became aware Friday of a problem with some absentee ballot applications that were sent my mail.

“There’s some issue within the post office where some mail that is addressed to City Hall does not in fact get delivered, but gets returned to the sender,” Singer said.

Singer says she doesn’t know how many applications might be affected, and that her staff is in contact with the Postal Service about the problem.

Spokeswoman Cathy Yaroski said Monday the Postal Service is looking into the issue.