Luzerne County prepares to close out election

Luzerne County’s Election Board will start putting the 2024 general election to rest on Monday with an official vote to certify the results.

While the lion’s share of ballots will be factored into this stamp of approval, it’s technically a partial certification because the results from a small number of ballots must be added to the total and approved by the board after Thanksgiving, said board Chairwoman Denise Williams.

The additions partially stem from 74 provisional ballots discovered Wednesday as county workers commenced a mandatory recount in the U.S. Senate race. The board has reviewed and processed these ballots from two polling places in Plymouth and Dorrance townships, but the timing was too late to include the results in pre-certification board signings that must be completed in advance, Williams said.

Paper provisional ballots are cast at polling places on Election Day and must be reviewed last by the board to verify the voters are properly registered and did not also cast a mail ballot.

Williams said polling place judges of elections are supposed to place provisional ballots in an envelope, log the number and insert that package inside their return bag delivered to the election bureau.

Instead, the two polling places put the separately bundled provisional ballots in red bags used to transport ballots that voters print out and feed into a scanner/tabulator at their polling place, Williams said. Typically, these red bags are only unsealed during the post-election adjudication process if there is a recount or as part of an audit, she said.

Williams said she will seek discussion about steps to ensure this does not occur again because the ballots were only detected due to the recount. She suggests the bureau promptly contact judges of elections for more information if provisional ballots are not in their return bags. There were more than 2,800 provisional ballots cast Nov. 5, so any polling places without them would have stood out, she said.

Board Vice Chairwoman Alyssa Fusaro said the board determined 40 of the provisional ballots were in order and must be tallied — 36 from Plymouth Township and eight from Dorrance Township.

The board rejected the remaining 34 for the following reasons, according to Fusaro: 10 missing outer envelope voter signatures; 21 from voters who already had a mail ballot accepted; 1 from a voter no longer active due to missing two federal elections; and 2 from voters not registered in this county.

No appeals

The campaigns of U.S. Senate candidates Robert P. Casey Jr. and Dave McCormick did not file appeals contesting the board’s decisions on accepting and rejecting certain provisional ballots during a two-day challenge hearing last week.

Casey announced he was conceding Thursday and acknowledged McCormick as the winner.

Representing Casey’s campaign, Attorney Neil O’Donnell said the two-day hearing was not a waste of time.

The challenge of voters rejected as not registered resulted in 24 ballots accepted because the voters were found to be registered after all. There were several others also deemed registered, but their provisional ballots were rejected due to defects in the way they were completed.

In another category, Casey’s campaign challenged ballots from voters identified as registered in other counties. The board found 17 ballots in the batch had no apparent voter registration problems or deficiencies and advanced them through processing.

“I’m proud of Sen. Casey’s effort at adjudication and the challenge hearing and some of the systemic problems that we’ve uncovered,” O’Donnell said. “There’s no perfect election day and no perfect system, but I’m hoping the bureau takes the time to learn from these errors and place safeguards to make sure every lawful vote counts. None of that would have been uncovered without Sen. Casey’s efforts.”

County Manager Romilda Crocamo had said the county law office will be compiling a thorough post-election analysis that will identify any needed improvements. A county task force also will seek state legislation changes, she said.

But while the county will continue to work on its end, Crocamo reiterated the state needs to overhaul the entire election system to make it both manageable for counties and accessible to voters.

“It’s like counties are forced to perform brain surgery with a butter knife,” Crocamo said.

Crocamo said the bureau and assisting county departments put in many long hours to make the high-turnout election successful, with 156,890 residents casting ballots.

“I can’t even begin to say how hard they worked. It’s brutal,” Crocamo said. “It’s like they are running a marathon every single day for two months.”

O’Donnell singled out Williams for the methodical structure she set up to conduct post-election adjudication.

“She is one of the most impressive public servants I’ve encountered in all of government,” he said.

O’Donnell also spoke of Casey’s concession, describing him as a “great friend, a great senator and a great office holder from a great family.”

“I’m sure we have not heard the last from Sen. Casey and the Casey family and its imprimatur on Pennsylvania politics,” O’Donnell said.

The Pennsylvania Department of State announced Friday that it informed all counties to halt ongoing recounts in the U.S. Senate race in response to Casey’s concession.

“Thank you to all of Pennsylvania’s elections officials for their hard work throughout this election cycle, including counting millions of ballots and continuing to diligently conduct two audits to ensure every eligible vote cast in the Nov. 5 election is accurately counted,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in the statement.

Monday schedule

Prior to certification, the board will resume its ongoing adjudication at 9 a.m. Monday in Penn Place to complete a mandatory audit and wrap up its review of a reconciliation report that includes a comparison of the number of voters that signed in at polling places and the total ballots cast, Williams said.

The agenda also includes a review of custody logs used to track ballots retrieved from drop boxes inside the county’s Broad Street Exchange Building in downtown Hazleton and Penn Place.

The board also must unseal and process approximately 22 provisional ballots the board had accepted, based on Department of State guidance, even though they were missing outer envelope signatures from the judge of elections. Opening of these ballots had to wait until the board verified the McCormick campaign would not be appealing the board’s decision, Williams said.

The certification is set for 4 p.m. It will be in the council meeting room at the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre — not Penn Place. Instructions to attend remotely are posted under council’s authorities/boards/commissions online meeting link at luzernecounty.org.

Based on unofficial vote tally updates since the election, the board had reviewed and accepted more than 4,500 provisional ballots and flagged mail ballots as of Friday.