Luzerne County mail ballot processing complete

Luzerne County finished processing the approximately 11,000 remaining mail ballots by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

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 Wednesday.

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.

County workers were in the process of uploading the mail ballot results to the county and state online reporting systems at 5 p.m.

Unofficial county results are posted on the main page at luzernecounty.org, while statewide results are available at electionreturns.pa.gov.

County Acting Manager Romilda Crocamo had said the worker shortage stemmed 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 Tuesday, 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.

Speaking after Wednesday’s count at the Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre wrapped up, Williams and Election Board member Alyssa Fusaro thanked election bureau employees and county workers who assisted.

“They are heroes in my book,” Fusaro said of the workers.

Williams and Fusaro also encouraged the public to attend the board’s upcoming adjudication of several hundred mail ballots flagged for various reasons, which starts at 9 a.m. Monday. The board also will be making determinations on provisional ballots and write-in winners next week.

“It’s a transparent process, and we’d love to have people check it out,” Fusaro said.

In light of complaints about the mail ballot processing delay, Crocamo said Wednesday there is no requirement to tally all mail ballots on election night, although it always remains a goal.

“We have delivered another successful election. It was transparent, and the people of Luzerne County should feel very, very happy the integrity of the election is back in full force,” Crocamo said.

She said the election bureau was pushed to the limit conducting a primary immediately after an April 5 special election for state representative in the 116th Legislative District.

“This was a successful election, and I’m very proud of the election bureau staff,” Crocamo said. “They are working together as a team.”