Luzerne County Election Board frustrations erupt at final adjudication session

The Luzerne County Election Board’s Nov. 5 general election adjudication wrapped up Monday — with contention.

Two board members separately walked out of the morning adjudication in frustration, although one later returned.

In another issue, board members strongly criticized the election bureau for failing to document counts on some mail ballots from drop boxes as required by the board’s chain-of-custody policy.

Despite these issues, the day ended with all five board members unanimously voting to certify the general election results in a later, second meeting at the county courthouse.

Walk-out

Board member Daniel Schramm abruptly stood up at 10 a.m. as Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams and Vice Chairwoman Alyssa Fusaro disagreed about how to proceed with a ballot.

Schramm referenced repeated interactions between Williams, a Democrat, and Fusaro, a Republican.

“I’m tired of the two of you,” Schramm said as he collected his belongings.

On the way out, Schramm showed his degree of frustration by adding, “You can kiss my ass.”

The outburst and walkout represented a rare glimpse into the simmering tensions that have been building up since the election board began its adjudication work on Nov. 8— which included sessions on Veterans Day and a Saturday — for election certification.

The ballot in question came from an Election Day polling place in a provisional ballot envelope. When the board unsealed the inner secrecy envelope, they realized the voter had placed a completed mail ballot inside instead of the provisional ballot that had been furnished with the provisional packet.

Schramm had said the board should accept it and transpose the selections on a provisional ballot so it can be read by the scanner/tabulator and counted.

Fusaro said the ballot should be rejected and complained Williams ignored her request to proceed with a vote.

Fusaro packed up her belongings and left at 10:09 a.m., but returned later.

“All of us are leaving. We’re tired of your crap,” Fusaro told Williams.

When Fusaro left, Williams and Board member Albert Schlosser waited a few minutes for Board member Rick Morelli, who was out of the room due to a phone call, to return so they had a quorum to proceed.

Nobody knew why the voter received a provisional ballot because voters can use the ballot marking device if they bring their mail ballot (and envelopes) to the polling place to be spoiled. They also questioned why the mail ballot was inserted instead of the provisional one.

Regardless, county Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino told the board it could accept the ballot and transpose it to a provisional so it could be read by the scanner/tabulator.

In Fusaro’s absence, Morelli said he did not believe Fusaro made a formal motion on the ballot.

Schlosser also said he wasn’t clear on what she was seeking because he couldn’t hear her.

Williams said she thinks Fusaro made a motion, but Williams said she wanted more clarity on how to proceed.

Morelli said even if there was a motion, there was no second to advance it. He formally made a motion to accept and transpose the ballot to a provisional one, and all three agreed.

Fusaro returned at 10:23 a.m., saying she had been upset that Williams did not ask if there was a second on her motion.

Williams and Morelli, a Republican, transposed the mail ballot to a provisional one. Election Director Emily Cook projected it onto a screen because the voter had shaded bubbles for candidates that appeared on the ballot and also shaded in the bubbles next to each write-in line.

Williams, Morelli and Schlosser agreed to accept the candidate selections and disregard the write-in bubbles because the voter never wrote in any names. Williams asked Fusaro if she wanted to say anything, and Fusaro did not reply to her.

Schramm and Fusaro are in terns that expire the end of 2025, while Schlosser and Morelli serve through the end of 2027. While those four are in seats filled by county council, Williams serves in a fifth board chairmanship seat filled by the other four election board members under the county home rule charter structure.

Williams’ term expires April 20 next year, and she has said she does not plan to seek reappointment. She said she has met goals to implement many protocols and procedures during her chairmanship, including a transparent adjudication structure. She also is considering running for county council and said she would resign from the board if she files nomination papers to be placed on the ballot.

Drop boxes

Under the board’s policy, the teams of sheriff deputies or designated election workers collecting ballots from drop boxes must complete a collection form that includes the number of ballots retrieved.

When the ballots arrive in the bureau, a full-time election bureau employee must then call another employee to witness the drop box content delivery. The bureau worker must announce the ballot count and record the number on a site collection form after verification by the colleague.

In Monday’s session, the board wanted to compare the retrieval and delivery form figures for the drop boxes inside the county’s Broad Street Exchange Building in Hazleton and Penn Place Building in Wilkes-Barre.

However, Fusaro pointed out the bureau’s spreadsheet contained asterisks on five days with no numbers for the drop box in the Penn Place lobby. County Deputy Election Director Steve Hahn said the ballots were immediately placed inside the bureau’s secure storage room on those days.

Williams asked why they were not counted by the bureau.

Hahn said the Penn Place ballots were kept in clear plastic bins in storage until staff had time to align them in trays so they could be processed by the mail ballot sorting machine.

Fusaro said she realizes it was a lot to count, but the bureau should have promptly time-stamped them and processed them through the sorting machine. She theorized this issue delayed the recording of ballots as received in the state’s online ballot tracker, prompting more people to resort to provisional ballots at the polls.

“I think we need to do a better job,” Fusaro said.

Williams said this was a bureau responsibility, and she predicted the lapse would be “fodder” for people against drop boxes. She described the failure to follow policy as “very shocking.”

“I’m very disappointed in the bureau that that was allowed to happen,” Williams said, adding later, “We need to run a tighter ship on those, and that’s not the fault of the board.”

Schlosser said he supports drop boxes and that this failure should not reflect negatively on drop boxes.

The adjudication session at Penn Place ended shortly before noon, and the election board reconvened for their certification meeting at the county courthouse. Schramm did not return to the morning meeting, although he did return in the afternoon.

Certification

The board unanimously approved the certification, which was technically a partial certification because a small number of later-processed provisional ballots must be added next week. The board will schedule another certification meeting for the add-ons.

During adjudication public comment, Wilkes-Barre resident Bob Caruso said he noticed many working diligently during adjudication the past few weeks. Caruso faithfully attended the adjudication.

He said it is “just extraordinary” that the board is working so many hours without pay and said lawyers and observers from both political parties have been polite and professional toward each other throughout the process.

“Everybody cooperates in our democracy, and I hope the election board notices that,” Caruso said.

During certification, he thanked Election Director Emily Cook, Hahn, Molino and the board “on a job well done.”

“Every election has difficulties. This one had more than usual, and I think the public is well served by each and every one of you,” Caruso said.

Like Caruso, Plains Township resident Audrey Serniak was a fixture throughout the adjudication.

“If something could happen this election, it probably did,” said Serniak, a prior election board member, citing a vendor’s misspelling of a state representative candidate on mail ballots that were then reissued, issues with segregated ballots mixed in during pre-canvassing, a higher number of provisional and military/overseas ballots, a recount, a lengthy provisional challenge hearing and some “board drama.”

Serniak said she believes everyone “did a pretty good job” conducting and monitoring the election.

“No doubt improvements can be made to the process, but from what I observed, every effort has been made to compensate for human error and to count every legitimate vote,” Serniak said.

Williams also read two email public comments. One was from a woman upset that her 20-year-old son at college in Philadelphia did not receive his mail ballot until the day after the election, even though she said he sent the application the week of Oct. 14.

Another woman from Fairview Township said she completed an on-demand mail ballot at Penn Place and placed it in the drop box there, but she had to visit the bureau for confirmation it was received and accepted because it still did not show up in the online ballot tracker a week later.

Speaking in public comment after certification, county Controller Walter Griffith said this was “probably the most difficult election we’ve had in our lifetime” and thanked the board and election bureau.

Griffith said “this election did not come without its problems,” saying the county “dropped the ball extremely on customer service.” He said “there are a lot of lessons to be learned” from this election, including the need to push state legislators to address election law provisions that are causing confusion and hurdles for counties.

“This board has taken a lot of time to be sure that every vote was counted and everything was done on the up and up,” he said.