HARRISBURG, Pa. — More than 4,000 absentee ballot applications have been challenged in 14 Pennsylvania counties, leaving election officials to decide voters’ eligibility in hearings that will extend well beyond that. Election Day.

State election officials say the “massive challenges” have focused on two distinct groups: people who may have forwarded their mail without also changing their voter registration and non-military U.S. voters living in the foreigner. Overseas voters are only eligible to vote under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act for presidential and congressional seats.

The state had set a 5 p.m. Friday deadline for anyone to challenge absentee ballot requests; all ballots from voters whose applications have been challenged must be sequestered until county election board officials hold a hearing to rule on the claims. These hearings must take place no later than Friday, three days after Election Day.

Pennsylvania is a swing state that could be a deciding factor in the Democratic nominee’s contest Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trumpa very close race on the eve of election day. If the margin is tight, the 4,300 mail-in ballots could be enough to determine who wins the state and its 19 electoral votes.

The effort follows a ruling by a federal judge decision last week to dismiss a lawsuit filed by six Republican members of Congress seeking to force Pennsylvania election officials to institute new checks confirming the eligibility and identity of military and overseas voters.

The county elections board’s first hearing, held Friday in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester County, resulted in the rejection of all challenges to mail-in ballot applications, saying people moved and should have changed locations. where they vote.

“The scary thing is that they had sent this letter with a voter registration cancellation form and claimed to have induced 2,300 voters to cancel their voter registrations” in Pennsylvania, the president said Monday. Democratic Chester County Commissioner Josh Maxwell.

Challenges cost $10 per voter and it’s not entirely clear who filed each one. In Chester County, they were filed by Diane Houser, a Trump supporter who said they were nonpartisan and from a grassroots network.

Lycoming County will hold a hearing Friday on 72 challenges it received from Karen DiSalvo, an attorney with PA Fair Elections, a conservative group that has fueled right-wing attacks on voting procedures. DiSalvo said she faced the challenges as an individual, not as part of an organization.

“The challenges submitted simply emphasize that county election officials must properly process the voter registration applications they already have for these candidates. Voters have nothing to do: they have all received their ballot. To resolve the eligibility issues flagged in the challenges, county officials must properly register candidates,” DiSalvo wrote in an email.

In York County, all of the challenges — 354 — were rejected Monday by the election commission, but Chief Clerk Greg Monskie said the commission agreed to keep those ballots separate for a period during which an appeal can be interjected.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections, said that as of Saturday, some 3,700 challenges to absentee ballot requests from out-of-state voters were pending in 10 counties. Challenges were also pending in four counties against 363 voters based on purported address changes — plus the 212 who were rejected or removed in that category in Chester County.

Eric Roe, Chester’s Republican commissioner, said those challenged included active-duty military personnel, students and people who left Pennsylvania to seek medical care.

“It seems alarming to me that someone would take such an approach to disenfranchise legitimate voters in Pennsylvania,” Roe said. “And I can’t think of anything less American than that.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania says filling out a change of address form doesn’t necessarily mean a voter has permanently left the state — these forms can also be used to have mail forwarded.

There are also 52 challenges being reviewed in Lawrence County, said Tim Germani, director of elections and election services in Lawrence, and it appears most, if not all, are for absentee ballot requests at the foreigner. The elections commission may have to hold a hearing by Friday, he said.

In Bucks County, a Philadelphia suburb, where about 1,300 challenges have been filed — most by Republican Sen. Jarrett Coleman — officials were trying to notify voters Monday of a hearing scheduled for early Thursday. Until then, those votes will be separated during the vote count, Bucks government spokesman Jim O’Malley said.

“We are doing our best to notify these voters today and that notice will include information on how to contact the Board of Elections,” O’Malley said in a telephone interview Monday.

A message seeking comment was left for Coleman.