Editor’s Note: We continue to look at stories that shaped 2020. Stories will be published through New Year’s Eve.

Times News staff

The presidential election of 2020 will go down as perhaps the most watched contest in American politics, with mail-in voting at the core of determining the outcome that put Joe Biden over President Donald Trump.

In Pennsylvania, one of a handful of battleground states, 2020 marked the first time that no-excuse absentee voting was allowed, playing a key factor in Biden’s triumph.

The new law granted voters the opportunity to vote by mail without an excuse. Previously, absentee voting was allowed for people who were out of their voting district on Election Day or had a medical excuse.

As it turned out, Election Day results heavily favored President Trump, but mail-in voting was the deciding factor.

Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 77 into law on Oct. 31, 2019, following overwhelming support from the Republican Party.

In the Senate, where Act 77 passed 35-14, Republicans voted 27-0 in favor of the bill, along with eight Democrats, with the 14 dissenting votes coming Democrats. In the House, Republicans voted 105-2 in favor of the new law, while Democrats were more divided, 59 against and 33 in favor.

The mail-in voting heavily favored Biden, who trailed substantially in Election Day returns, but who overcame a 1.3-million vote deficit because of the new law. Suddenly, the law became controversial, as it was challenged scores of times in the legal system, but Act 77 prevailed, as did Biden. The Republicans, for their part of the bargain in passing the law, got their wish by the elimination of straight-ticket voting. Until 2019, voters could walk into a voting booth and press one lever or button to cast a vote for each of a given party’s candidates up and down the ballot.

This inherently favored down-ballot Democrats because there have long been significantly more registered Democrats in the state than registered Republicans. Republicans expected that eliminating straight-ticket voting would mean more people would split their ticket - that is, to vote for one party in the presidential race and another party in state and local races - or that Democratic voters would vote at the top of the ballot and leave lower races blank.

The elimination of straight-party voting, however, probably helped the GOP in statewide races. Biden won the state at the top of the ticket, but two Republicans, Timothy DeFoor and Stacy Garrity, won state row offices, being elected auditor general and treasurer, respectively. That indicated that voters did not vote straight down the ballot.

So, how much of a difference did 2020 mail-in voting make in the presidential election? Consider that Trump tallied 2,731,230 votes from voters who reported to the precincts on Election Day. Compared to Biden’s 1,409,341, the president appeared to be in a good position with a lead of 1,321,889 votes.

However, nearly 3 million people took advantage of the new voting law and the difference was overwhelming in favor of Biden. He received 1,995,691 mail-in votes, compared to Trump’s 595,538, and the plurality of 1,400,153 voted turned the state election around.

The end result was Biden winning Pennsylvania by a margin of 3,458,229 to 3,377,674, the victory being by 80,555 votes.

Local mail-ins

In the five-county region of the Times News (Carbon, Monroe, Lehigh, Northampton and Schuylkill), Biden’s mail-in vote advantages obviously aided his victory. The totals in the five counties showed Trump led by almost 115,000 votes - 219,678 to 104,734, but the mail-in votes flipped the tide.

When they were counted, Biden had collected 151,837 votes, compared to just 54.595 for the president. The Republican still won the five-county region overall - 277,694 to 259,374 - but his advantage was sliced by 97,242 votes with 62 other Pennsylvania counties still to weigh in.

Overall, Biden won Lehigh, Northampton and Monroe counties and it was the mail-in votes that made the difference. In Lehigh, Trump led 65,064 to 39,263 in Election Day balloting, but Biden’s 57,544 to 17,802 advantage in mail-in voting gave him an overall win in Lehigh by 98,288 to 84,259.

In Northampton, the results were similar. The president led 63,666 to 30,753 in Election Day totals, but the mail-in votes gave Biden a win of 53,481 to 19,220, and the former vice president ended up winning Northampton 85,087 to 83,854.

The Monroe County vote totals had President Trump winning by 30,432 to 18,689 on Election Day. Mail-in totals favored Biden, 25,345 to 8,259, and Biden ended up winning Monroe by a difference of 44,060 to 38,726.

Meanwhile, the president won Schuylkill and Carbon counties, although the mail-in totals did cut his lead by lesser margins than the three bigger counties.

In Schuylkill County, he led 42,010 to 10,884 in Election Day totals. The mail-ins favored Biden 9,569 to 6,150, cutting the president’s lead by 3,419 votes, and overall, Trump was a 48,871 to 20,727 winner in that county.

In Carbon County, the president was ahead 18,506 to 5,145 in Election Day totals. The mail-ins favored Biden, 5,898 to 3,164, and decreased President Trump’s lead by 2,734 votes. Overall, the president won Carbon County by a vote of 21,984 to 11,212.

Mail-in votes also resulted in Election Day deficits for incumbent congressmen Susan Wild, Lehigh County, and Matt Cartwright, Lackawanna County, being eliminated, as both received sufficient marginal wins over their opponents, Lisa Scheller and Jim Bognet, respectively, to win re-election to two-year terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.