Luzerne County plans to try mail ballot drop box equipped with enhanced security

A new mail ballot drop box with innovative security measures may be used in Luzerne County’s Penn Place Building for the May 20 primary election as part of a pilot program, county Election Director Emily Cook announced Monday.

County Manager Romilda Crocamo said the county’s five citizen Election Board will make the final determination on whether the pilot program proceeds.

Cook’s release said the drop box from Runbeck Election Services has a front-facing camera that photographs voters as they return ballots.

The box also is equipped with an internal scanner that captures an image of the envelope and correspondence number on each ballot deposited, which will increase the thoroughness of the chain of custody and accelerate status updates for voters returning their ballots, it said.

A screen on the front of the box provides on-the-spot notice to voters that their ballot envelopes have been successfully returned to the Bureau of Elections, it said.

“The part that the County of Luzerne plays in this pilot program coincides with our mission of providing greater security, accuracy and modernization to our election process,” Cook’s release said.

The county will hold a public demonstration of the drop box at 1 p.m. Thursday at Penn Place, 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre.

Following Cook’s announcement of the plan, council Vice Chairman Brian Thornton asked if the election board was consulted.

Crocamo said the plan is to invite council, the board and public to the demonstration, which occurs before the board’s next meeting April 16. The demonstration will allow the board to make an informed decision when considering the pilot program at its next meeting, she said.

Crocamo also emphasized the county is not paying for usage of the drop box.

The county has experience with Runbeck. A county council majority voted in 2022 to purchase the company’s Agilis Mail Ballot Sorting System. Housed in the election bureau, the Agilis weeds out ballots with missing inner secrecy envelopes and other defects and eliminates the need for staff to manually scan bar codes on each outer envelope to mark them as received.

The system cost $315,500, which did not include the licensing and service agreement, and was purchased with a portion of the county’s annual state election integrity grant.

Drop boxes

The county administration is proceeding with plans to provide drop boxes in two county-owned properties, as it did in the November general election — Penn Place and the Broad Street Exchange Building on West Broad Street in downtown Hazleton.

An election board majority had approved four boxes in prior elections, but only the two inside county-owned properties were deployed for the general election because the remaining two hosted by outside entities could not be anchored to a floor or wall.

Many hours have been spent talking about drop boxes at multiple county public meetings in recent years, with crowds of voters presenting opposing views on the topic.

County Election Board member Rick Morelli, a Republican, said Monday he foresees the county sticking with two locations.

“From what I gather from the board, the drop box discussion and debate is over,” Morelli said, stressing that he would “fight firmly against” adding additional drop box locations.

While he had pushed in October to eliminate all drop boxes, Morelli said he sees the benefits of having the second site for residents in the county’s southern half. Last November, he had to help an elderly family member needing to return a mail ballot close to the election. He agreed to drive the voter — a Republican — to the Hazleton drop box.

Morelli added he is open to considering the enhanced drop box pilot program.

County Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino has told the election board there is no “law” governing drop box requirements. Drop boxes are permitted to be used by county election boards, but they are not required by either statute or case law, he has said.

This lack of clarity regarding drop boxes in state election law came up during the county Election Task Force’s most recent meeting March 27, said Jim Rose, county Administrative Services division head. Crocamo created the task force to identify state election law problems and seek legislative action.