Luzerne County Election Board addressing missing ballot signatures

Attempting to prevent ballot-disqualifying errors, Luzerne County’s Election Board may seek state approval to highlight provisional ballot envelope lines that must be signed by voters and poll workers.

The matter is scheduled for a vote at Wednesday’s board meeting. The board plans to vote on seeking a variance from the Pennsylvania Department of State permitting yellow highlighting of the signature lines, the agenda said.

Paper provisional ballots are cast at polling places when workers determine additional voter verification is needed. The board reviews them last during post-election adjudication to ensure the voters are properly registered and did not cast a second ballot by mail.

A missing voter signature is the subject of pending litigation in the April 23 primary election Republican race for state representative in the 117th District between incumbent Mike Cabell and challenger Jamie Walsh.

Lake Township voter Timothy J. Wagner had signed the outer envelope once but not a second time when he handed it to the poll worker. The board had accepted the ballot, and a county Court of Common Pleas panel agreed with that decision. On appeal, two of three Commonwealth Court judges presiding over the matter granted Cabell’s request to reject Wagner’s ballot due to the missing signature. Walsh has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to accept the ballot, and a decision is pending.

Board Chairwoman Denise Williams suggested the highlighting at the July meeting, saying the board is faced with provisional ballots missing outer envelope signatures after every election.

After that meeting, the Pennsylvania Department of State provided this statement in response to a reporter inquiry on the board’s interest in highlighting the lines:

“The Department of State encourages counties to employ practices that enfranchise voters and reduce county election burdens, including through solutions that make clear which portions of the declaration must be completed.”

County Election Director Emily Cook had agreed highlighting would be helpful because missing signatures persist even though signature requirements are stressed in poll worker training.

However, Cook cautioned provisional envelopes with no highlighting already had been ordered for the upcoming November 5 general election.

If the highlighting is allowable, board Vice Chairwoman Alyssa Fusaro had said the county may be able to highlight the signature fields by hand on the in-stock envelopes. The highlighting could then be incorporated into future envelopes by the outside printing vendor, she said.

Williams said Tuesday she is willing to volunteer her time highlighting the signature fields by hand.

“If it prevents any ballot from being turned in without signatures, that would be a success to me,” Williams said.

In-house processing

The board also is scheduled to discuss and vote on having the election bureau handle data entry for write-in votes and ballots in which voters picked too many candidates or made stray marks.

Past election bureau leadership turnover and the administration’s failure to supply adequate manpower had forced the five-citizen, volunteer board to take over the data entry.

County Manager Romilda Crocamo has committed to providing additional trained workers and written standard operating procedures to free up the board.

Williams said Tuesday she would not be comfortable voting to hand off the work unless procedures are approved and in place.

Cook drafted proposed procedures for the board’s consideration in July, inviting the board to provide feedback. In response, Williams said she compiled supplemental step-by-step instructions and believes combining the two will provide complete guidance to workers handling the task.

The agenda calls for a board vote on the procedure document and transition of the data inputting process to bureau leadership.

Cook has stressed the board would remain in control of all decisions related to the acceptance and rejection of ballots and voter selections.

Aside from the question of which entity handles the data entry task, Williams said the completion of standard procedures is worthwhile for future board and bureau election overseers to end reliance on institutional knowledge.

“I think it’s great to finally have something in writing,” Williams said.

Mail ballots

Williams has scheduled discussion and possible votes on two matters related to mail ballots.

In the first, she is seeking posting on the county website of voters who submit mail ballots with defects that will prevent their ballots from being counted, such as missing inner secrecy envelopes.

Williams said she had asked the election bureau to look into this issue because she observed some other counties are posting such lists. Voters may not receive or notice emails informing them of defects so they can address the matter, she said. She noted the county had publicly posted the names of voters with defective provisional ballots that were challenged after the primary.

The other mail ballot matter involves the instruction card. While the ballots themselves contain a Spanish translation, the directions to assemble the ballot and envelopes are not translated, Williams said. She inquired about translation for the instructions in April.

Wednesday’s meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Instructions for the remote attendance option are posted under council’s authorities/boards/commissions online meeting section at luzernecounty.org .