WaPo:

Election officials across Pennsylvania braced for a chaotic day of voting in Tuesday’s primary, as the convergence of the coronavirus pandemic and protests over the death of George Floyd threaten to close in-person polling locations, even as thousands of voters who requested mail-in ballots still have not received them.

In Philadelphia, city officials said they were working with police and other emergency personnel to prevent violence from disrupting voting. The city planned to open 190 polling places instead of the usual 831, but with a late surge of poll workers canceling their commitments out of fear of unrest, there was no guarantee that even the reduced number of polling sites would open Tuesday morning.

“This was already a difficult task with the pandemic, and the current events have only made that difficult task harder,” said Nick Custodio, a deputy city commissioner.AD

Reached moments before voting was scheduled to begin at 7 a.m., Custodio said election officials were receiving numerous calls, and he could not say whether polling places would open on time.

At the A.W. Christy Recreation Center in predominantly African American West Philadelphia — where 15 separate polling locations were consolidated — voters arrived with mail ballots in hand, unsure of what to do with them. With no ballot dropbox available, officials directed voters to a public library a mile away.

Voting advocates said many voters were showing up at their long-standing voting locations, only to find facilities shuttered and with no signs directing them to a consolidated location. They also said black voters have struggled to vote absentee, largely because of a combination of mistrust about dropping their ballot in the mail and lack of Internet access to understand how to do it.