Luzerne County will test potential new electronic poll books at some polling places in November

As part of a pilot program, Luzerne County will use new electronic poll books from Knowink at 30 polling places in the upcoming Nov. 7 general election, county Manager Romilda Crocamo told county council Tuesday.

Crocamo has not yet reached a final decision on which new poll book system will be recommended to council for purchase approval and said the pilot program with Knowink will provide a test to determine if its system works well here, noting other counties have implemented similar pilot programs. She reiterated there was not enough time to select and fully implement a new system before the general.

Election Systems & Software was the other vendor under consideration. Both the county election board and a panel set up by the county administration had recommended Knowink.

The county’s prior electronic poll books, purchased for $325,000 in 2018 from Election Systems & Software, are outdated and cannot be used again due to battery problems and other issues that surfaced in the May 16 primary election, officials have said.

Used for voter sign-in at polling places, the electronic poll books also instantly allow poll workers to search data for voters in the wrong polling place and streamline the process of crediting voters for casting ballots in the state’s voter database.

County Deputy Election Director Emily Cook told council the 30 precincts in the pilot program will be a mix of those that have historically excelled at using new technology and those where implementing new equipment has been “a bit of a challenge.”

The remaining 156 precincts that are not part of the pilot program will use paper poll books in the general election. Paper poll books also will be on hand at precincts in the pilot program as a back-up, officials said.

The pilot program will cost $17,080 and be funded through the county’s latest annual Pennsylvania Election Integrity Grant, said Cook and county Administrative Services Division Head Jennifer Pecora. The county received a $1.038 million to assist with expenses in the general election and 2024 primary.

The county sought pricing for 220 poll books. The submitted prices were $431,290 from Election Systems & Software and $437,300 from Knowink, officials said.

Addressing the upcoming election overall, Crocamo told council “the race is on” to prepare and said the election bureau and entire administration are working as a team.

She highlighted tasks already completed and said the bureau is sticking to a rigid schedule to ensure no requirements fall through the cracks.

“We are going to have a successful election in 2023, and it’s because of the hard work of the election bureau,” Crocamo said.

In other updates, Crocamo said the purchasing department, Pecora, county Controller Walter Griffith and the budget/finance and law offices have started reviewing invoicing and procurement procedures as part of a restructuring to improve the way the county seeks goods and services and logs them in the financial system.

Council votes

Council approved an ordinance Tuesday finalizing the last portion of a total $415,000 budget transfer to fund courtroom repairs, upgrades and restoration and the addition of new courtrooms.

A council majority also voted to:

• Extend the county’s insurance broker contract with USI Insurance Services for one more year instead of seeking proposals at this time. USI will receive $60,000 for the additional year, which is the same as its payments in 2022 and 2023.

• Pay a $10,000 settlement to end an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint filed by former county prison correctional officer Daniella De’Angelo alleging discrimination based on disability, gender and other factors.

• Introduce an ordinance creating an opioid committee that will make recommendations to council on the spending of money received from the state’s litigation settlement against opioid manufacturers and wholesale distributors. The county is due to receive approximately $25 million over 18 years. The proposed ordinance said the following would serve: the county district attorney, drug/alcohol director, human services division head, correctional services division head, county manager, one council member and a county citizen.

• Appoint four citizens to the Forty Fort Airport Advisory Board, which oversees the county-owned Wyoming Valley Airport: Dr. Richard Blum, William Greiner, John Sedor and Jeffrey Williams. Five citizens were appointed to the Luzerne/Schuylkill Workforce Investment Board — Jane Ashton, Carmen Rosa Kahiu, Mary Malone, Heather Nelson and Michael Saporito. Finally, Katherine Silfa and Charles Blewitt were appointed to the Luzerne/Wyoming Counties Drug and Alcohol Executive Commission.

• Make council’s ad hoc Act 13 Committee a standing body that will publicly vote on all natural-gas recreation funding expenditures to be presented to the full council for its consideration. Councilman Brian Thornton, chairman of the committee, said he recommended the change to increase public transparency.