Approximately 20 of Luzerne County’s 186 polling places reported election morning issues with poll cards that workers must use to activate ballots on the electronic ballot marking devices, county Election Director Emily Cook said around 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Election workers also were sent to Dennison Township to address problems with a scanner/tabulator at the Dennison Township polling place because the matter could not be resolved through remote troubleshooting, Cook said.
Cook emphasized no voters were disenfranchised or unable to vote in these situations because the county provides emergency paper ballots as a backup to each polling place — enough to cover every registered voter. These emergency ballots are already on site at polling places, which means there is no need to wait for delivery, she said.
“We have a plan in place to ensure voters are able to cast ballots regardless of power or system problems,” Cook said. “There are backup plans to the backup plans.”
After filling out selections on the emergency ballots, voters feed them into the scanner/tabulators to be cast, Cook said.
In the case of a temporary scanner/tabulator issue such as the one in Dennison Township, a bipartisan team of election workers will feed the emergency ballots into the scanner if the voters are unable to wait and perform that task themselves, Cook said.
Cook said the county has had “intermittent issues” with the poll cards in the past. As a precaution, the county was in the process of delivering spare poll cards to all 186 polling locations around 9 a.m. Tuesday, she said. She noted that the 20 reports of poll card issues did not all result in workers being unable to activate ballots.
She said there are no countywide issues that have surfaced.
“As always, there are situations that pop up in various precincts throughout the election,” Cook said.
Cook attributed the poll card and scanner issue to aging equipment.
The county is switching to a new system in 2026 that will use paper ballots, although an electronic ballot marking device must still be set up at each polling place for those with disabilities.
County Manager Romilda Crocamo said shortly before 10 a.m. that both matters had been resolved. The Dennison Township scanner/tabulator was fixed, and poll cards were delivered to all polling places that had reported issues, she said.
