Luzerne County to explore voting system options

Luzerne County will explore options for a new voting system in case county council wants to make a switch for 2026, officials said.

County Election Director Emily Cook briefly informed the county election board of the plan during last week’s meeting.

County Manager Romilda Crocamo provided more explanation later in the week, saying this is an appropriate time to reconsider the voting system because the five-year maintenance and support contract with current voting equipment supplier Dominion Voting Systems expires at the end of 2025.

In light of this upcoming change, the administration will publicly post a request seeking proposals from voting machine suppliers by the end of this month, Crocamo said.

A public search process is necessary to learn the features and costs of all state-certified voting systems and determine if a change is warranted and feasible, the manager said.

Another option for council would be negotiating a new maintenance and support contract to continue using the Dominion system for a set number of years.

Council had approved the purchase of Dominion’s system for $3.6 million at the end of 2019 as part of a state mandate for all counties to implement systems with a paper record that can be verified by voters and kept in case tallies are questioned.

There are two ways to meet the paper-trail requirement — filling in ovals on actual paper or making selections on a computerized touchscreen ballot marking device and then printing it out for review before feeding it into a tabulator to be cast and saved. The Dominion system uses ballot marking devices, but the county has used paper ballots at times that were then scanned into the Dominion tabulators to be tallied.

Because there’s no mandate to change systems, there may be little or no state and federal funding to offset costs. The purchase of a voting system is not eligible for funding through the county’s annual state election integrity grant, officials said.

For the upcoming proposals, Crocamo said she will consider input from both the county’s five-citizen election board and general public before making a recommendation to council, adding that these steps are part of her commitment to transparency and public engagement.

A memorandum of understanding between the administration and election board allows the board to agree or disagree with the vendor selection, and this memorandum will be honored, she said.

“While the ultimate decision regarding the choice of vendor will rest with the Luzerne County Council, the insights and recommendations from the Election Board will be invaluable in guiding this important decision,” Crocamo said.

All prospective vendors will be required to demonstrate their voting machines and provide the public with a chance to test the equipment and ask questions, Crocamo said.

“We believe that public input is essential in making informed choices that enhance the integrity and reliability of our electoral process,” she said. “We encourage citizens to stay informed and participate in this process as we work towards securing the best voting solutions for Luzerne County.”

Last search

The process to select Dominion’s system took nearly a year.

In February 2019, the county held a public demonstration of paper-trail voting machines at the county courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, inviting all five companies with systems certified for use in this state: Unisyn Voting Solutions, Dominion, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), Hart InterCivic and Clear Ballot Group.

Proposals were due in May, and then-county manager C. David Pedri formed a committee of employees and citizens to evaluate submissions and make a nonbinding recommendation. Two vendors were not considered — Clear Ballot and Unisyn — because they did not participate in the committee’s mandatory demonstration, officials had said.

Pedri told council in September he was personally recommending the Dominion system, while his committee supported one from ES&S. The county already was using another ES&S system that had replaced the county’s 70-year-old lever machines.

The county Election Board also weighed in, voting in October to recommend the ES&S system.

Another public demonstration was held in October for council and the public to examine the three options.

Pedri formally recommended the Dominion system in November, saying in part that his decision was based on evaluations of ease of use, security, integration, customer service and training.

In addition to five years of maintenance and support, Dominion’s $3.6 million price included equipment hardware and software. The initial purchase covered 750 ballot marking devices and 230 scanners/tabulators, prior reports said. The state reimbursed 60% of the cost.

A council majority approved the Dominion contract in December.

Officials at that time had estimated the Dominion system would be in use for a decade or more.

Dominion’s ballot marking devices were supposed to be used for the first time in the 2020 primary, but the county reserved them for those with disabilities and had other voters use paper ballots due to coronavirus pandemic-related challenges training election workers on the new system. The paper ballots were read through Dominion tabulators.

The ballot marking devices were fully activated for all polling place voters in the November 2020 general election.

Since the Dominion system has been in use, county officials have periodically stressed the system was extensively tested by the state before its certification and that Dominion components are standalone and not connected to the internet.

The ballot marking devices also alert voters when they attempt to pick too many candidates (overvoting), let them know when they have not selected all allowable choices (undervoting) in case they want to choose more and require voters to type in write-in selections so handwriting does not have to be deciphered, officials have said.

The county’s voting equipment was sequestered after the May 2021 primary due to an investigation by the District Attorney’s Office. County DA Sam Sanguedolce informed the county in September 2021 the machines were cleared for use in that year’s general election.

The county’s equipment from Dominion came under fire in the 2021 primary when headers of Republican ballots on the electronic devices at polling places were incorrectly labeled as Democratic ones — a problem blamed on a ballot programming typographical mistake at Dominion that was not detected by the county. The county implemented post-programming testing of the header in response.

Sanguedolce had said his office witnessed a full demonstration of all equipment.

“In reviewing complaints, we had no indication that the equipment itself was flawed,” Sanguedolce had said at that time.