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Why Philadelphia Fortified Its Vote Counting Center
CNN One Thing
Oct 30, 2024
Victory for both the Harris and Trump campaigns likely runs through Pennsylvania. In the commonwealth’s biggest city, election officials say they’re ready to count the vote – and to beat back a torrent of misinformation that’s already arrived.
Guest: Seth Bluestein, Philadelphia City Commissioner
Episode Transcript
David Rind
00:00:01
Alright, I'm walking up to city hall here...
David Rind
00:00:06
Last week I went on a short walk to drop off my mail in ballot.
David Rind
00:00:10
Box is here...
David Rind
00:00:12
I can't stress enough how easy this was. Walked right up to the drop box, checked my envelope. And that was that.
David Rind
00:00:21
And in it goes.
David Rind
00:00:24
I am one of more than 43 million Americans who have voted early by mail or in person so far. The vast majority of ballots have been cast without incident. However, there have been some efforts to interfere in the electoral process. For example, authorities in the Portland, Oregon, area are investigating after at least two of those ballot drop boxes were set on fire early Monday morning. They say the two incidents are connected to another drop box fire in Vancouver, Washington earlier this month. Hundreds of ballots were destroyed, but officials stress all votes will be counted. And then there's foreign interference with Iran and Russia being linked to alleged hacking and disinformation campaigns, respectively. And all of this is happening before any votes have even been counted. So what's going to happen that today an election official from a critical battleground state tells us what's keeping him up at night as Election Day approaches from CNN, this is One Thing I'm David Rind.
David Rind
00:01:40
'For both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is perhaps the most crucial piece of their Electoral College puzzle. It could be that so-called tipping point state that seals the deal.
Former President Donald Trump
00:01:56
You know, I'm looking at this crowd. It's such a young crowd. It's a young crowd and a lot of young people here.
David Rind
00:02:02
Which is why we saw Trump show up on the campus of Penn State over the weekend trying to rally young voters.
Vice President Kamala Harris
00:02:08
Well, it is good to be back in Philadelphia.
David Rind
00:02:11
And it's why we saw Harris race across Philadelphia on Sunday. She visited a predominantly black church, barber shop bookstore and a Puerto Rican restaurant.
Vice President Kamala Harris
00:02:20
I'm very excited about the reports that we're getting about enthusiasm here in Philadelphia. And to your point, Philadelphia is a very important part of our path to victory.
David Rind
00:02:31
'Remember, President Joe Biden's dominance in Philadelphia helped tip the state in Democrats favor in 2020. Trump wants to eat into that margin this time around. But counting the vote is not a straightforward thing. Republicans say they're already involved in 130 pre-election court cases across the country, setting the stage to cast doubt on the 2024 results. And officials in that crucial city of Philadelphia have been here before.
Seth Bluestein
00:03:04
I served as the deputy Commissioner for Density, Commissioner Al Schmidt, who is now the Secretary of the Commonwealth. I served in that position for ten years, so I had a lot of experience managing elections generally, and that was my third presidential election. But that week in 2020 was unlike anything we had ever experienced before.
David Rind
00:03:28
Seth Bluestein is the city commissioner of Philadelphia and the secretary on the city's bipartisan Board of Elections. He says the sheer amount of mail in ballots, remember, because of Covid, the state instituted no excuse absentee voting for the first time, made counting the 2020 vote extremely tricky. He spoke to me from his office on Monday.
Seth Bluestein
00:03:53
We don't have pre canvasing prior to Election day, so we were not able to start the counting process until 7 a.m. on Election Day itself, when the polls opened and we had over 375,000 ballots to go through. So we had hundreds of temporary employees, lots of equipment, and we got everything started as quickly as we could. And then we just had to keep going 24 seven until we were finished.
David Rind
00:04:22
And what were you hearing from outside voices? I'm thinking especially of Trump supporters who were talking about issues that they thought they had heard. Like what kind of messages were coming in as you were trying to do this work?
Seth Bluestein
00:04:36
Well, the first thing that we experienced was complaints about there allegedly not being Republican observers at the Pennsylvania Convention Center where we were counting the votes.
Former President Donald Trump
00:04:45
there was a big problem in Philadelphia. They went in to watch. They were called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren't allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia. Bad things.
Seth Bluestein
00:04:59
And that was obviously not true because I was there interacting directly with observers from both parties. So that was the first real issue that we had to deal with on Election Day. And then from there, as the polls closed and night kit went on, it just got more intense as time went on.
David Rind
00:05:19
When you say intense, what does that mean?
Seth Bluestein
00:05:21
'Well, protesters started gathering outside of the convention center. There were complaints about ballots being counted because they didn't have any understanding of the fact that it would take longer for results to come in for the mail ballots because of how long it takes to count them, and that we couldn't start until Election Day. So we appeared like President Trump was winning because the in-person results were coming in. But then once the mail ballots finally got into the count, Biden caught up.
David Rind
00:05:55
And this is like that red mirage they talk about.
Seth Bluestein
00:05:57
Yeah, the red mirage where it appeared like the Republican was winning. But ultimately, that's just because not all the votes have been counted yet. And as that continued, and then eventually a couple of days later, when Biden overtook Trump in the totals in Pennsylvania, it really became a very challenging environment.
Pam Bondi
00:06:21
There is a gentleman there by the name of Seth Bluestein, who is an assistant to a city commissioner, and he is wearing a badge the size of a baseball. And as far as I know, he's not a sworn law enforcement officer. So it looks like intimidation to me.
Seth Bluestein
00:06:36
With my name was mentioned by someone from the Trump campaign at a press conference because I was the deputy commissioner interacting with the observers.
Pam Bondi
00:06:46
He told them they can't come any closer. He said the reason was because of they can't interfere with the process. And then something about Covid, well, we all know it.
Seth Bluestein
00:06:55
'And immediately following my name being mentioned, I started receiving anti-Semitic harassment and threats.
David Rind
00:07:03
I mean, how did that make you feel? Just trying to count the votes, make sure everything is going according to the letter of the law and you're getting these messages directed at you personally.
Seth Bluestein
00:07:14
At the convention center. It was an interesting environment because when you're on the ballot counting floor, it's almost like a casino effect. You don't know what's going on in the outside while you're counting the votes. You don't know it's night or day. If it's raining, you can't even hear the protesters. So even though the threats were starting to come in, I felt very secure on the ballot counting floor, counting votes. The bigger concern for me was that one of the threats mentioned coming to my house where my wife and kids were. So we had to get police protection outside of my house to protect them. And that's really the thing that got to me the most.
David Rind
00:08:00
Did you ever expect anything like that would ever happen? You know, getting into this line of work now.
Seth Bluestein
00:08:07
The eight years prior to that, I started in 2012 and it had not been like that at all. I remember when we first started one of the commissioners who had been there for years prior, he was like, Well, especially during the summer, this is going to be a pretty boring job. Make sure you have some books to read. And that didn't turn out to be the case. I mean, running elections is always a lot of work, and there's a lot of different ways you can improve election management. So you're always trying to find ways to better the system by. Yeah. Now, 2020 was so different than anything before.
David Rind
00:08:44
There's like a difference though, between being not boring and being actually scary and having to get protection for your family.
Seth Bluestein
00:08:50
That's exactly right. Yeah.
David Rind
00:08:52
So why did you decide to come back and do the job again here in 2024?
Seth Bluestein
00:08:58
It's a good question. When Secretary Schmidt left office, we had to fill the remainder of his term. And when I was being interviewed for the appointment, that was the first question I was asked, which is, why do you want to keep doing this after what you just experienced? And the answer is simply because it has to be done. This is a bipartisan board of elections. It is important that we have an experienced bipartisan commissioner team running the elections in Philadelphia. And knowing what we went through in 2020 and what was potentially going to happen in 2024. I didn't want to leave that in someone else's hands.
David Rind
00:09:51
Well, so tell me about this election here, which is just about a week away. What kind of preparations have you and your team done to make sure everything goes smoothly.
Seth Bluestein
00:10:00
From an elections operation standpoint? Things are looking really good right now. We have poll workers recruited. Polling places are lined up. Ballots have been mailed out to voters who requested them. They're coming back in. The voting machines have been programed, so we're ready to go. When 2020 finished, we moved all of our equipment into a new permanent warehouse in a more remote part of the city. And we've spent the last three and a half years preparing the security around that facility. So that is also ready to go for this election.
David Rind
00:10:35
What kind of security around the building are we talking about?
Seth Bluestein
00:10:38
Well, I'm not going to get into too much detail about what we have on the inside. But, you know, the obvious visible stuff, we have fencing around the entire facility. We have guard shacks. You'll notice that the distance from where the fencing is to the building itself is much larger than the distance was at the convention center.
David Rind
00:10:58
So the protesters, like, can't be knocking on the windows or anything like that.
Seth Bluestein
00:11:02
No, they won't even get close.
David Rind
00:11:05
Can you explain how the poll watchers will work this time around?
Seth Bluestein
00:11:09
Well, poll watchers are at the polling places on Election Day. So they are assigned by candidates or the parties. They get certificates to be able to go to polling places around the city and check on how the Election Day voting is going. The canvass observers at the warehouse also have to get credentialed by a party or candidate. They go through security to get into the building. And then they'll be on the ballot counting floor, able to observe everything's happening.
David Rind
00:11:39
So they will see every envelope opened and they'll be able to see it up close.
Seth Bluestein
00:11:44
Yeah, the distance is much closer than it was at the convention center.
David Rind
00:11:48
What about misinformation online? Because I've seen you be very active on Twitter, actually responding to various claims, debunking them, even, quote, tweeted Elon Musk himself, but say there are rumblings about an issue at one of your polling stations or at this warehouse where the votes are actually being opened. Are there processes in place for your team to kind of beat back some of this stuff in real time?
Seth Bluestein
00:12:13
Yeah, we have a whole team of communications professionals who'll be at the warehouse monitoring social media and being ready to respond. I will personally respond to anything I see on social media that is incorrect. I don't care if you have 200 million followers or two followers. It doesn't matter if you're supporting the Republican candidate or a Democratic candidate. Ultimately, the truth matters. And getting the truth out there to the best of our ability is important. And if something happens at a polling place that we need to correct in real time, I'll drive down there and disprove any conspiracy theories myself. I did that in the 2022 midterm elections where there was misinformation about a polling place in South Philadelphia. I drove from the warehouse. It took me 40 minutes to get down there. And by the time I got down there, I was able to correct the misinformation right away.
David Rind
00:13:09
Because obviously there are some issues at polling places like you mentioned, that may be actual things that you need to look at. But then there's the the fake stuff that is actually, you know, causing harm. Do you think any of this, like fact checking that you're doing, you know, online, like, does it make a difference or is there just too much of it to actually kind of stem the tide of the people who firmly believe dating back even for years that it was stolen from Donald Trump and it's about to be stolen again?
Seth Bluestein
00:13:38
We're not going to convince every single person who sees the post from Elon Musk that what he shared was incorrect. But it is still important to do fact checking and to get the correct information out there. It is important to do it immediately, especially before the election, because if there are conspiracies about the election after the fact on those same issues, we can point back to our response in real time as part of the evidence for why the election was being done correctly and fairly.
David Rind
00:14:11
So you're kind of like setting a paper trail.
Seth Bluestein
00:14:13
Yeah. And it's why it's so important to respond immediately as soon as we see something.
David Rind
00:14:18
Talk to me about the vote counting itself like Pennsylvania is obviously a critical state that everybody will be watching as the night progresses, as the week progresses. So can you just break down which ballots will be counted when?
Seth Bluestein
00:14:31
Sure. So starting at 7 a.m. on Election Day, we begin processing the mail ballots. We have significantly fewer mail ballots this election than we had in 2020. But it still takes a lot of time because you have to remove the ballot, the secrecy envelope from the outer envelope, and then remove the ballot from the secrecy. The. After you reviewed everything and you approve them, they get counted. So you're talking about handling 600, 700,000 pieces of paper. Wow. The majority of those ballots that we worked on all day will be in the first batch of results released at 8:01 p.m.. So those will be mail ballots. Then throughout the evening, the results will come in from the polling places. So we'll have the voting machine results from all the different precincts that'll come in throughout the evening, probably between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m.. And at some point before that, we will have a second release of mail ballot results. And then from there, we will just continue counting the mail ballots until we finish.
David Rind
00:15:34
So you do expect it to go faster than it did in 2020, is that right?
Seth Bluestein
00:15:39
Absolutely.
David Rind
00:15:41
You're the sole Republican on the Philadelphia Board of Elections, is that right?
Seth Bluestein
00:15:45
That is correct.
David Rind
00:15:46
So the Republican nominee, former President Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, have not flat out said that they will accept the results no matter what they offer. This caveat of if it's fair. And that kind of stuff. As someone who works hard to get out accurate and clear information about voting and debunking all these claims like we talked about, do you want to see Trump win the White House?
Seth Bluestein
00:16:10
I do not take a position on who should win elections. My job is to run the election fairly. And what I can say is Pennsylvania's elections and Philadelphia's elections will be safe and secure. It will be free and fair. And I expect every single candidate who is running to acknowledge that and say up front that they will accept the results of the election.
David Rind
00:16:33
But I guess as as a Republican, how do you feel when the standard bearer of the party continues spreading all this misinformation, not to mention just making your life harder by having to to, you know, educate about all of this?
Seth Bluestein
00:16:46
It's unacceptable.
David Rind
00:16:48
Well, I guess finally, as an election official in a key battleground state, what's the one thing that keeps you up at night? As we sit here on Monday, eight days from Election Day.
Seth Bluestein
00:16:58
The window in time for when the polls close until when the race is called is the greatest window for myths and disinformation, which is going to lead to harassment and threats. And we are doing everything in our power to speed up the vote counting process. But that window of time is still my biggest concern because there will be a potential time, whether it's Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning, where the results may not be called in Pennsylvania. And we don't control that. But that is when the biggest risk really is after the election.
David Rind
00:17:37
Those people who are working in the warehouse, like do they have concerns about coming in in that window, like actually getting into work and being able to do their job safely if there is, you know, harassment and disinformation floating around?
Seth Bluestein
00:17:52
Everyone who is has signed up to do this work is doing it because they are committed to counting people's votes in our democratic system. You know, these are people who have returned year after year since 2020 to count ballots. They know what they went through in 2020. They know what potentially is coming down the pike for this upcoming election next week. And they're still committed to doing their job. And they do a great job. And I'm confident that our elections are going to be accurately counted.
David Rind
00:18:25
Well, Commissioner Bluestein, thanks so much and good luck next Tuesday.
Seth Bluestein
00:18:29
Thanks, David. Appreciate it.
David Rind
00:18:39
One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Hayley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Remember, head over to cnn.com/vote for the CNN Voter handbook. Everything you need to know about voting before next Tuesday and head over to cnn.com or check out the CNN 5 Things podcast for the very latest on the campaign. We'll be back on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.
