Luzerne County workers process mail ballots on the third floor of the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre Wednesday.
Jennifer Learn-Andes | Times Leader
Luzerne County workers handle initial sorting of mail ballots Wednesday as Election Board members Jim Mangan (standing left) and Danny Schramm observe.
Jennifer Learn-Andes | Times Leader
Luzerne County expects to count all remaining primary election mail ballots today.
Tuesday’s primary election day mail ballot processing fell behind because it stopped earlier than usual and fewer county workers assisted, officials said.
The county ended up receiving 18,340 mail ballots before the 8 p.m. Election Day deadline from 13,919 Democrats and 4,421 Republicans, said county Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams.
Approximately 7,000 of the mail ballots had been unsealed, processed and tallied on Election Day, leaving 11,340 to address today.
The administration had expected around 13 workers would be assisting with the processing today, but Williams said she was pleased 20 or more were present.
“We hit the ground running,” Williams said.
Based on the pace of processing throughout the day, she was cautiously optimistic mail ballots would be tallied by 5 p.m. today.
Results from these mail ballots will be uploaded to the county and state’s online reporting system when today’s processing is completed, Williams said.
County Acting Manager Romilda Crocamo had said the worker shortage stems largely from a funding change. Since mail ballot voting took effect in 2020, the county was able to use federal coronavirus assistance funding to pay workers overtime to stay through the evening processing the ballots. Without that funding in this election, overtime was not offered because it would have to be covered by the election bureau’s budget, she said.
Only 10 to 15 workers assisted with the mail ballot processing on Election Day, compared to approximately 35 in last November’s general election, Crocamo said.
County Controller Walter Griffith said the administration should have alerted council if funding was an issue, saying money could have been transferred from the budget reserve to cover overtime. Williams said she was unaware the administration had assigned fewer workers for mail ballot processing and said the board will request that information before future elections to ensure all options are explored and that the public has a realistic projection on when the mail ballot results will be tallied.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
