AJ Vicens for Mother Jones:

Perhaps nowhere worries experts more than Pennsylvania. As a perennial presidential battleground, its 20 electoral college votes—decided by just 44,292 votes in 2016—always attract the spotlight. But this year, the state is grappling with a number of unprecedented conditions and challenges that could complicate the smooth administration of November’s election, including a recent overhaul of state election law predating the pandemic, continuing fights over changes to voting prompted by the coronavirus, and a growing sense that President Donald Trump’s campaign and supporters will ignore democratic norms to ensure victory in a state that he must win. It’s a brew that in a close election could send the state in the direction of high stakes, drawn out, and hard fought post-election challenges that could determine the fate of the nation.

“If the election comes down to electoral college votes in Pennsylvania, I think it’s going to be hell,” says Rick Hasen, a [UC Irvine] law professor and expert on election administration and voting rights. “That’s one of the worst possible outcomes.”

For Hasen, the state’s inexperience with mail ballots is a key concern. In 2019, Pennsylvania’s Republican controlled legislature passed a bill with largely bipartisan support that allowed voters, as part of a growing national trend, to cast ballots by mail under any circumstance. This fall’s general election would have been the first conducted under the new rules, but no one expected a pandemic would push an unforeseeable number of the state’s 8.8 million voters to opt for mail balloting. The flood could swamp little-tested mailing, handling, and processing procedures. Already, issues are flaring up: On October 14, election officials in Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, announced that nearly 29,000 ballots went to voters with the wrong contests, a mistake noticed by attentive voters. Officials intervened to prevent another 19,000 faulty ballots from being sent, and have pledged to re-issue correct ballots.

Adding to Hasen’s worries is a state law that bans substantial processing of mail ballots until Election Day. The provision is almost certain to result in a delay between the release of results collected at in-person polling places and those that came by mail ballots, hindering the quick designation of a clear winner. Trump supporters have outlined plans to exploit the delay. Last week, the Associated Press reported that Trump allies think “their best bet” at holding the White House is to “hope results look close on election night, before some of the mail-in ballots are counted, allowing Trump to declare victory and have the results thrown to the courts.”