Philly will have 17 one-stop voting centers, thanks to a $10M grant

Update: Only seven offices will open Tuesday, Sept. 29. The rest will open on a rolling basis. (9/29/20, 2:26 p.m.)

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Happy National Voter Registration Day, folks!

About six weeks out from the 2020 general election, Philadelphia’s Office of the City Commissioners was granted $10 million to make it safer and simpler to vote this fall.

The grant was awarded by the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonpartisan, tech-focused voting effort. And the millions are expected to fund 15 new satellite offices that will allow citizens to register, plus request a mail-in ballot, fill it out and return it in a single trip, Billy Penn reported.

The grant will also go toward funding the offices for early voting, drop boxes for mail-in ballots, sorting equipment to count votes, a “hazard” pay bump for poll workers and extra cleaning protocol at polling places for COVID-19 safety. The 15 new offices will be joined by the two existing County Board of Election offices, which offer the same services. All centers are expected to open Tuesday, Sept. 29.

If you’ve requested and received a mail-in ballot to your home, you can use these centers as drop off locations, too. Many will be inside public schools and will be open every day, between 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“This has been a tremendous effort by our department, the School District of Philadelphia, The Office of Innovation and Technology, the Department of State, and Comcast to get these sites selected and ready to operate over the past few months,” said City Commissioner Chairwoman Lisa Deeley in a statement. “With these offices, we could make it easier and much more convenient for the voters of Philadelphia to exercise their vote and have their voice heard this fall.”

The full list of satellite locations can be found here, and information about options to vote, like registration or requesting a mail-in ballot (which can be done by any Pennsylvania voter) can be found here.

Register to vote here

Are you registered to vote?
At your current address?
You sure?
Do you want a mail in ballot?
Did you know the deadline to do all this is Mon, Oct. 19!?!?!

ALL OF THE ABOVE AT THIS LINK, BB!!!!https://t.co/gOxwsPrhoN

— Paige Gross ✨ (@By_paigegross) September 17, 2020