In-person voting still an option Nov. 3

With all the buzz about mail-in voting, it should be stressed Luzerne County voters never lost the option to cast their ballots in person.

County residents interested in voting at the polls on Nov. 3 will use new voting machines — most for the first time.

The machines were reserved for the disabled in the June 2 primary due to coronavirus pandemic challenges recruiting and training poll workers, with others voters required to cast paper ballots.

On the new touchscreen machines, voters will make selections as they did with the old devices. But instead of touching a screen box to lock in their votes, they will receive a paper printout to verify their selections before they feed the paper into a tabulator to be read and saved in compliance with a state paper-trail mandate.

Residents who cast paper ballots at polling places in the primary already used part of this new system when they placed their ballots into the tabulators to be read, county Election Director Shelby Watchilla has noted.

The tabulator step is essential because that’s when votes are cast, Watchilla said. Poll workers will remind voters because their ballots won’t be cast if they leave the polling location with their ballot, she said.

Public demonstrations of the new machines will be held four days this week in the courthouse rotunda on River Street in Wilkes-Barre.

County Election Board members will conduct the sessions and answer questions about the system, which was purchased from Dominion Voting Systems Inc.

The demonstration schedule: 1 to 3 p.m. on Sept. 14 and 16 and 4 to 6 p.m. on Sept. 15 and 17.

Depending on the number of attendees at the demonstration, residents may have to wait their turn in a separate area of the courthouse, with masks and social distancing required, officials said.

The county will soon begin poll worker training on the new machines, Watchilla said.

Polling locations

In the primary, the number of voting sites was temporarily reduced from 144 to 58 to alleviate concerns about proper social distancing and pandemic-related shortages of poll workers and polling places.

The plan is to return to all pre-coronavirus pandemic polling places on Nov. 3.

County Manager C. David Pedri said he will release a list by the end of the month stating any polling locations unwilling to host an election due to coronavirus concerns, such as elderly residential facilities.

Election workers will wear masks and have hand sanitizer available for voters, said county Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik.

As in the primary, voters without masks will be politely asked to wear a face covering for the protection of others, although those refusing will still be permitted to vote, officials said.

Voters also will be expected to adhere to social distancing guidelines as much as possible inside polling places and outside if there are lines to get in. Reminder signs will be posted.

Upon arrival, voters must sign in on an electronic poll book. Parsnik said it’s still unclear if the county will provide voters with a take-home stylus or clean a shared stylus between uses with disinfecting wipes.

Special screen wipes will be used to clean the ballot marking devices, he said.