{"id":19145,"date":"2025-10-29T22:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/19145\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T22:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:34:13","slug":"republican-voters-drive-increase-in-mail-ballot-requests-in-pennsylvania-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/19145\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican voters drive increase in mail ballot requests in Pennsylvania | State"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is made possible through Spotlight PA\u2019s<\/a> collaboration with Votebeat<\/a>, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. Sign up for Votebeat\u2019s free newsletters here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

HARRISBURG \u2014 State data shows voters of both parties are turning to voting by mail in record numbers \u2014 and Republicans have seen a particularly strong rise.<\/p>\n

According to data from the Pennsylvania Department of State, as of Monday, more than 1.1 million voters had requested a mail ballot. That\u2019s up 17% from the 2021 municipal election, the most comparable recent election, and up 9% from 2023, when higher-profile local races such as district attorney and county commissioner were on the ballot.<\/p>\n

The increases could be a sign that voters are more interested in the judicial retention races on this year\u2019s ballots than they have been in other races in recent municipal elections.<\/p>\n

The last day to request a ballot was Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe numbers struck me,\u201d said Chris Borick, a professor of political science at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. \u201cHaving that type of activity at this point does suggest that voters are a bit more engaged this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican voters appear to be driving the trend. While Democrats still make up the majority of mail ballot requests, 66%, Republicans now make up a greater share than they did four years ago. The number of mail ballots requested by GOP voters has risen to roughly 277,000 from 205,000 in 2021, a 35% increase. The Democrats\u2019 total, by comparison, is up just 9%<\/p>\n

As of Monday, voters of both parties had returned roughly 52.5% of their ballots.<\/p>\n

This is despite Republican leaders sending mixed messages<\/a> to voters on the safety of mail voting.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has derided mail voting as susceptible to fraud and said in an August social media post that he would \u201clead a movement\u201d to get rid of it. But local and state Republicans have been encouraging people to vote by mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just last week, Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican once considered a top contender for governor, promoted the option in a social media post<\/a> shared by the state party.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings change for a lot of us, so if you can vote early, vote early,\u201d he said. \u201cSend your mail ballot in.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Republican interest in mail voting has been growing steadily in recent election cycles, the increase for this year\u2019s typically low-turnout municipal election may have to do with the year\u2019s highest-profile race: a judicial retention election<\/a> that will decide whether several appellate judges initially elected as Democrats get to stay on the bench for 10 more years.<\/p>\n

Republicans have been urging voters to vote \u201cNo\u201d on three state Supreme Court justices, and two lower court justices. They hope a no vote will open up the possibility of flipping the ideological majority of the state Supreme Court during the 2027 municipal election. Millions of dollars have already been spent<\/a> in the race on a type of election that historically received little attention.<\/p>\n

The state Supreme Court plays a crucial role in elections, settling high-profile legal disputes<\/a>. Republicans are citing some of those recent rulings as a reason to vote no.<\/p>\n

Borick, the Muhlenberg professor, said so far, he is seeing signs that the retention races are driving greater interest in this election, compared with previous municipal elections. However, he said the numbers of mail ballot requests aren\u2019t a definitive indicator.<\/p>\n

The ultimate question, which can\u2019t be answered until Election Day, is whether they represent an actual increase in turnout or just voters who typically go to the polls shifting to voting by mail, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident that the Republican efforts to reach out to the voters and make them more comfortable with mail ballots has shown some results,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, again, will those be some different voters? I think Republicans are optimistic it will maybe get on the margins, some folks that wouldn\u2019t have shown up \u2026 and therefore add to their totals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is made possible through Spotlight PA\u2019s collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1930,4158,8552,7722,836,902,744,4163,4160,28,30,29,4162,386,4159,50,382,13421,13423,4161,8553,5023,66,7573,1824,13422],"class_list":{"0":"post-19145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-accountability","9":"tag-democracy","10":"tag-democratic-party-united-states","11":"tag-early-voting","12":"tag-election","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-government","15":"tag-group-decision-making","16":"tag-parliamentary-procedure","17":"tag-pennsylvania","18":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","19":"tag-pennsylvania-news","20":"tag-political-corruption","21":"tag-political-events","22":"tag-political-law","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-politics-of-the-united-states","25":"tag-postal-voting","26":"tag-postal-voting-in-the-united-states","27":"tag-psephology","28":"tag-republican-party-united-states","29":"tag-retention-election","30":"tag-united-states","31":"tag-voter-turnout","32":"tag-voting","33":"tag-wisconsin-supreme-court"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}