Luzerne County manager issues statement on Wyoming Area School Board ballot error

Luzerne County Manager Romilda Crocamo issued a statement Tuesday about a Nov. 7 general election ballot candidate omission error in the Wyoming Area School Board race that came to light on Election Day.

Luzerne County’s election bureau did not notify Wyoming County’s election office that Nick DeAngelo should be removed from that county’s ballot because he withdrew and that Independent candidates Philip Campenni and Erica Gazda must be added to the ballot because they filed candidacy petitions after the primary.

Wyoming County has one municipality — Exeter Township — in the Wyoming Area School District, and DeAngelo was the lone candidate on the ballot for the two-year board seat.

“The responsibility for this error lies solely with Luzerne County. I personally want to acknowledge the professionalism exhibited by the Wyoming County Director of Elections Florence Ball during this time,” Crocamo said in the statement.

Based on results, 210 of 479 registered voters in Wyoming County’s Exeter Township cast ballots Nov. 7. Of those, 134 selected DeAngelo, seven cast write-in votes and 69 did not select anyone in that race, the county’s website says.

In Luzerne County, unofficial results put Campenni ahead by 276 votes. He received 2,017 votes, compared to 1,741 for Gazda.

“It has been determined that a special election is not necessary as there is no circumstance that the impacted ballots would change the outcome. It has been reported to me that the Wyoming County Director concurs with this opinion,” Crocamo wrote.

Luzerne County Administrative Services Division Head Jennifer Pecora contacted impacted candidates to provide this information and discuss “concerns for a special election,” Crocamo said.

Gazda had said Monday she won’t be pursuing action to seek a special election based on the vote tallies.

Wyoming County already certified its election results, and Luzerne County’s Election Board is scheduled to vote on certification at 1 p.m. Monday in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, Crocamo said.

Going forward, Luzerne County’s election bureau will personally meet with other counties to ensure all candidates are correct in “split districts” that include municipalities outside Luzerne County, Crocamo has said.

In her Tuesday statement, Crocamo said she also has asked retired county judge Joseph M. Augello to add this error to his comprehensive inquiry.

“Luzerne County is committed to safeguarding the principles of fair and accurate elections,” Crocamo wrote. “The inquiry aims to identify the root causes of the error, assess its impact on the election process, and recommend internal measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. These findings will be made public.”

Crocamo announced last month that Augello, at her request, will be reviewing two issues involving mail ballots.

In the first, 1,557 Wilkes-Barre voters in Wards 2 to 8 and 14 to 20 received the wrong ballots, resulting in the need to mail new ones containing the correct city races for these wards.

According to the county, the problem occurred when data files specifying which ballots these voters were supposed to receive did not correctly synchronize when files were merged. The county was assessing why those particular city precincts had an issue when others matched up correctly during merging, officials have said.

The second matter stemmed from an outside printer error that caused an unspecified number of voters to receive mail ballot packages without the required inner secrecy envelope.

Approximately 25 voters detected the omission and made arrangements to pick up the blank secrecy envelopes or have one mailed to them. The county also instructed Pennsylvania-based NPC Inc. — the county vendor that prints the ballots, assembles the ballot packages and mails them — to issue a secrecy envelope to all voters who potentially did not receive a ballot along with instructions.

NPC has told the county it believed secrecy envelopes were missed because a machine operator placed the inserting equipment into a manual override while he attended to a nonconformity that was detected at the beginning of the inserting line.

“Because the machine was only in override mode for short periods, we do not believe the omitted secrecy envelope issue is widespread,” the company had said, adding the operator has been retrained to “not allow the machine to continue to operate in override mode.”

According to an online bio, Augello, of Pittston, served as a judge for more than 47 years, first as a magisterial district judge and then in the county Court of Common Pleas. In October 2010, he transitioned to senior judge status, retiring in 2022.