Philly is about to get $10 million for mail ballot drop boxes, early voting, and raises for poll wor
Philadelphia elections officials are set to receive a huge influx of money to run the November election.
As part of a $10 million grant, they plan to open at least 800 polling places across the city, set up 15 neighborhood elections offices for in-person early voting using mail ballots, install at least 15 mail ballot drop boxes across the city, give poll workers coronavirus hazard pay of an additional $100, and buy equipment to dramatically increase the processing of mail ballots.
That’s according to a grant agreement that the Philadelphia city commissioners, the three officials who run elections, will vote on Thursday. The $10 million would be a massive jolt for an office operating on a $12.3 million budget.
The money would come from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, which is also giving $2.2 million in election funding to Delaware County and millions more to other jurisdictions. It would be spread among various needs, according to the agreement posted online Wednesday, including $5.5 million for mail ballot processing equipment and $2.3 million to set up and staff 15 satellite offices.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/philadelphia-2020-election-funding-20200826.html
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Way to go, guys!
that we normally have 1,692 polling divisions at > 800 locations, many in their own smaller locations and others sharing space at larger facilities.
This setup allowed voters to have a polling place less than 10 blocks from where they lived. But with the pandemic, that number had been cut down to just under 1/4 (190) of the original number of locations during the last primary. If they can open back up to the 800 locations, that will take us back to what we would have normally had (although obviously being careful where to open new ones because in the past, a number had been located in senior facilities and that can't obviously happen now).
I know Board of Elections Commissioner and Chair Lisa Deeley has been warning for months about the lack of funds to deal with what will be a deluge of mail-in ballots and huge budget shortfalls, where during the primary, about 1/2 of the voters came in-person and the other 1/2 mailed it in (like me). These funds will go a long way to getting things in place to handle/process those mailed ballots and get poll workers the PPE and additional ballot counting machines needed to handle what is normally a higher-turnout type of election. 
