Luzerne County Election Board calls special meeting to discuss paper shortage

Luzerne County’s Election Board has called a special meeting for 6 p.m. Monday to focus on an election bureau paper shortage that caused widespread issues at polling places in the Nov. 8 general election, board Chairwoman Denise Williams said Thursday.

The meeting will provide an opportunity for the administration to “give an accounting of what happened” to the board and general public, Williams said.

It’s also possible the board will vote to request an investigation, she said.

The five-citizen, volunteer board does not manage daily operations of the election bureau but is tasked with overseeing county elections under the county’s home rule charter. Williams said the board has an interest in getting to the bottom of what happened because the paper shortage had a major impact on the election.

While county council also has been discussing formation of an election inquiry committee, Williams said the election board is directly involved in the ramifications of the paper shortage and receiving questions and concerns during the board’s still-ongoing election adjudication.

No explanation was presented during a county council meeting the day after the election on why a sufficient quantity of proper-stock paper was not loaded into the ballot marking devices or on hand for replenishment, Williams said.

“I’d like to give the bureau an opportunity to share what happened and why the printers did not have sufficient paper,” Williams said.

There’s precedent for the board’s action to seek a prompt accounting of basic procedures, she said, stressing she will make it clear the meeting will address protocols and not personnel issues that are outside the scope of the board’s authority.

Williams called a special board meeting days after the May 2021 primary election to learn why Republican ballots were incorrectly labeled as Democratic ones on electronic voting screens in that election. Representatives of the county’s voting system supplier and county administration attended that meeting to discuss what went wrong and what measures would be taken to prevent it from reoccurring.

Monday’s meeting will be at the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, with instructions for a remote attendance option to be posted on council’s authorities/boards/commissions online meeting link at luzernecounty.org.

Adjudication

The board wrapped up its review of most flagged general election mail ballots Thursday morning and is set to convene at 1 p.m. today — Veterans Day — to start tackling provisional ballots, Williams said.

An estimate on the number of outstanding ballots awaiting adjudication has not yet been released. This would include paper provisional and emergency ballots and potentially ballots printed at the polls that were not scanned into the tabulators due to a concern of jamming due to the type of paper available.

Republican Congressional candidate Jim Bognet told the board during commencement of its adjudication Wednesday that he was informed there are potentially 10,000 to 20,000 provisional ballots that must be reviewed by the board.

County Manager Randy Robertson told county council Wednesday he anticipates based on pending stacks of ballots that the vote count will reach 120,000 to 125,000 by the time the election board completes its adjudication. There are currently 113,209 ballots recorded as cast, which could leave another 6,800 to 11,800 left to review based on the manager’s estimate.

Williams said the board has not received a total estimate of outstanding ballots and those in each category.

Representing the Republican National Committee, Attorney Kathleen A. Gallagher told the board Wednesday she has received reports that voters at some polling places were instructed to vote on pieces of paper because their polling places ran out of paper for the ballot marking devices and provisional ballots.

Gallagher said the law requires the county to accept printed or written votes cast at polling places if a different method or format is used due to a system failure. The only exception would be a written vote selection in which the voter’s name is written on the sheet, compromising their privacy, she had said.

During the adjudication process, the bipartisan election board painstakingly reviews ballots to determine if they will be accepted or rejected. Before voting, the board seeks a legal opinion from the county’s law office and accepts input from representatives of both the county Republican and Democratic parties.

The review of provisional ballots requires advance research by the election bureau to verify these voters are registered and did not already cast mail ballots.

There also is a separate category of provisional ballots that were cast between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. during an extended period the court granted to help accommodate voters turned away earlier in the day because their polling places did not have paper, Williams said.

Williams said the board will review as many ballots as possible Friday and likely resume Monday morning.

Depending on the number of outstanding ballots and complexity of the issues encountered, the adjudication process could take days, she said. It’s unclear if the county will meet the state’s 5 p.m. Nov. 15 deadline to submit unofficial results or whether an extension must be requested.

“The hope was initially that we could be completed by Friday, but this situation has created a new variable. This is unprecedented,” Williams said. “We don’t know how long it will take.”

Attorneys representing candidates and political parties have been closely monitoring the adjudication.

“We will go through everything methodically and be just as thorough as we always are,” Williams said. “We will be addressing everything and looking through everything. I’m not going to rush something because there’s a deadline.”

Nov. 28 is the statutory deadline for county election boards to certify the Nov. 8 election results.

The board’s adjudication is open to the public and held on the third floor of the county’s Penn Place building, 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave. in Wilkes-Barre.

As adjudication proceeds and more ballots are accepted by the board, the county is regularly updating the unofficial results through its online database on the main page at luzernecounty.org. The most recent update was shortly after noon on Thursday.