Luzerne County tackling mail ballot concerns

With the issuing of requested mail ballots less then a month away, Luzerne County officials are focused on addressing lingering concerns.

Wednesday’s county election board meeting includes discussions about stepping up the preservation of mail ballot drop box surveillance recordings and voter education on the casting of mail ballots, the agenda said.

Meanwhile, a new grant-funded machine arrived Monday to help the election bureau speed up the time-stamping and sorting of at least 18,000 mail ballots expected to be returned for the Nov. 8 general election, said county Deputy Election Director Beth McBride.

Oct. 14 is the target date to start mailing ballots, McBride said.

Surveillance

While the county controls surveillance of the drop box inside the county-owned Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre, it relies on recordings from the hosts of boxes inside the Pittston Memorial Library, Hazleton City Hall, the Wright Township Volunteer Fire Department and Misericordia University in the Back Mountain.

The election bureau backed away from purchasing a county-owned surveillance system due to the cost. Instead, the bureau plans to collect and store copies of the recordings from each site to ensure the footage is retained at least 60 days as recommended by state guidance. Previously, the county requested recordings from the sites when inquiries arose, raising concerns it may not be available if needed.

Under a resolution up for board adoption Wednesday, each drop box location must provide recordings for the entire period the drop box was in use on a USB-based backup device supplied by the election bureau. This footage must be given to the sheriff’s office representative when each drop box is removed.

The county also must confirm the surveillance is properly working when the drop boxes are placed, it said.

This resolution also says the election bureau will ensure security of the drop boxes in accordance with Pennsylvania Department of State guidance, which recommends measures to prevent tampering and unauthorized removal of the boxes and ballots inside.

The board already had implemented chain-of-custody procedures for retrieving and transporting ballots and had switched from countertop boxes to bulky mailbox-style ones at the four non-county sites.

Education

Approval of a letter to nursing and personal care homes is on the board’s agenda.

Arguing these facilities need more detailed explanation about mail ballots, election board member Alyssa Fusaro had drafted a question/answer supplement and cleared it with the county law office.

A nursing home representative can drop off a resident’s mail ballot, but only if the voter and representative complete an “authorize a designated agent to help you obtain and/or return your mail-in or absentee ballot” form available at www.dos.pa.gov, it said.

The representative can only serve as designated agent for one voter or “household,” such as a couple sharing a room or apartment within a facility, the letter says. This means that each nursing/personal care home resident who is unable to return their own voted ballot due to a disability must designate a different agent, it said.

Fusaro has said the requirements make it clear there should be no instances of any voters dropping off a large number of ballots.

At Fusaro’s request, the board also is set to vote on asking county District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce to issue a public release about mail ballot drop boxes. The proposed request to Sanguedolce said the district attorney in neighboring Monroe County recently released a statement warning voters of the repercussions of fraudulent drop box activity.

“We, as a board, feel that this would go a long way towards educating our voters and would also cut the workload of your office in the future,” the proposed letter to Sanguedolce says.

Sanguedolce said Monday he was not aware of the board’s possible request but would certainly consider issuing a public statement on the subject.

Ballot machine

Purchased with a new state election integrity grant, the new ballot sorting machine arrived in the election bureau on the second floor of Penn Place Monday, McBride said.

The election bureau requested the machine to speed up election night tallying and reduce staff needed to manually scan mail ballot outer envelopes to mark them as received. Based on the envelope weight, the machine also will instantly weed out those missing required inner secrecy envelopes or containing more than the one permissible ballot inside, the administration said.

Set to arrive annually, the new $1.04 million election integrity grant strives to ensure counties across the state have their mail ballots counted by midnight on election night.

Testing and training on the new sorting machine will be completed this week, McBride said.

McBride said she plans to show the new machine and provide a full briefing on the mail ballot process for the media around the time the ballots are issued.

Wednesday’s election board meeting starts at 5 p.m. in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, with instructions for remote attendance posted under council’s authorities, boards and commissions online meeting link at luzernecounty.org.