[naviga:h3]State launches online application for mail-in ballots[/naviga:h3]

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania is launching the website where voters for the first time can request the newly legalized mail-in ballots ahead of the state’s April 28 primary election, officials said Tuesday.

The mail-in ballots, part of an election reform law signed in October by Gov. Tom Wolf, now allow all voters to vote by mail for any reason. The website was live as of Tuesday.

Online applicants must supply a driver’s license number or an identification card number issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, as well as their name, address, phone number and email address.

Prospective voters can also use the site to apply for an absentee ballot, and they will be asked questions to determine whether they qualify for one. Those questions include whether they will be traveling on the election day or whether they are ill or have a physical disability that prevents them from voting in person.

The deadline for county election offices to receive applications is 5 p.m. April 21. The deadline for county election offices to receive a mail-in or absentee ballot in the coming primary election is when polls close, or 8 p.m. April 28.

Voters can also download and print the application and mail it to their county election office, or apply in person.

Wolf pushed for the new mail-in ballots as a way to get more people to vote. However, some county election offices are warning that they do not have enough staff to count all of the mail-in ballots on election nights.

Wolf’s top election official, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, has said her agency is working with county election officials and studying counting procedures used in the about 30 other states that allow votes by mail.

[naviga:h3]Jurors resume deliberations in cookout ambush[/naviga:h3]

PITTSBURGH — Jurors return Wednesday to resume deliberations in the case against the remaining defendant in the slayings of five people and an unborn baby at a western Pennsylvania cookout almost four years ago.

The Allegheny County panel deliberated for seven hours Monday without reaching a verdict in the trial of 33-year-old Cheron Shelton, who is charged with first- and third-degree murder in the March 2016 slayings in Pittsburgh’s Wilkinsburg suburb.

Charges were dismissed earlier against Shelton’s co-defendant, 31-year-old Robert Thomas. Authorities had alleged that he opened fire on one side and Shelton gunned down victims running onto a porch for safety. They allege the target, who survived, was a person Shelton believed was involved in the 2013 murder of a friend.

Defense attorney Randall McKinney argued that evidence cited by prosecutors could be interpreted in more benign ways. Prosecutors have said they will seek capital punishment in the event of a first-degree murder conviction.