Coronavirus In Allegheny County: Officials Hope Vote-By-Mail Will Help Residents Feel Safe
ALLEGHENY COUNTY (KDKA) -- On June 2, Pennsylvania will hold its primary, and nobody is quite sure how many voters will feel comfortable turning out to vote.
Every Pennsylvanian is now allowed to vote-by-mail, but you have to go online to apply or submit a paper request for a ballot to be mailed to you.
Allegheny County has decided to make it easy for county voters to vote-by-mail.
"We want to limit the amount of in-person voting. So the best way to do that is to make it as easy as we can for people to apply for the mail-in ballot," Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Tuesday. "So every single Democrat and Republican, registered voters in Allegheny County, is going to be mailed an application to apply for a mail-in ballot."
Voters can then decide whether to return the application for a ballot or vote in person.
KDKA checked with surrounding counties, and they are waiting for voters to submit a request for a mail-in ballot.
Thousands of voters have already done so, but these counties are not sending applications unless requested.
"I think it would be incredibly difficult to add, on top of that, another mailing to all the votes," said Butler County Commission chair Leslie Osche. "And we're also operating at this point on the presumption that we will have polls open on June 2."
So unless you live in Allegheny County, where you should receive a mail-in ballot application in the next week or so, you must go online to apply.
Click here to apply.
