Luzerne County Election Board accepts and rejects ballots in Thursday’s adjudication

Luzerne County’s Election Board accepted 364 general election provisional ballots and 236 flagged mail ballots during Thursday’s post-election adjudication.

It also rejected 86 provisional ballots and 164 mail ballots due to deficiencies during the public session at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre.

A decision on the fate of five mail ballots was delayed Thursday because the county District Attorney’s Office is investigating, the board decided.

County Election Director Emily Cook said two voters were questioned when they were observed bringing more than one ballot to the Penn Place lobby drop box, and they did not produce a designated agent form upon questioning. One voter had two ballots, and the other brought three.

Under state law, voters are only allowed to mail or hand-deliver their own ballot unless they are serving as a designated agent for someone with a disability. Disabled voters must fill out an official form authorizing someone to deliver their ballot for them.

A board majority agreed to revisit the matter when adjudication resumes Monday, in part to see if the DA’s Office has any determination by then.

Segregated ballots

The county ended up receiving mail ballots from 13 voters impacted by an error causing a second ballot to be sent to approximately 30 voters, Cook informed the board Thursday.

After discovering the problem early last month, the county election bureau took immediate action to contact the affected voters and ensure only one ballot is accepted from each, Cook said at the time. Ballots from these voters were segregated.

A board vote was not necessary on Thursday because the 13 ballots had no deficiencies, but Cook said she wanted to publicly disclose the outcome before advancing those ballots to tallying.

Also segregated were 182 mail ballots with missing or incorrect handwritten dates on the outer return envelopes, Cook said Thursday.

These ballots must be accepted due to a federal court ruling by District Judge Susan Baxter, an appointee of President Donald Trump in his first term, county Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino told the board. That ruling concluded the rejection of undated or wrongly dated ballots violated the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The date refers to when the ballot was filled out. Critics have questioned the need for the date because the election bureau time-stamps the ballots when they are received and does not accept ballots that arrive after the 8 p.m. Election Day deadline.

Cook said she will continue to segregate ballots with handwritten date issues as a precaution because the matter has been litigated multiple times.

Provisional ballots

Paper provisional ballots are cast at polling places, typically when workers determine additional voter verification is needed. The county reviews provisional ballots last to ensure the voters are properly registered and did not cast a second ballot by mail.

The 364 provisional ballots were accepted because they had no deficiencies.

Twenty of these ballots were cast by voters who refused to use the electronic marking devices at their polling places, Cook said.

The accepted total also included 51 ballots cast by county registered voters who appeared at the wrong polling place. In such situations, the county only counts selections in races or referendums that would have appeared on the ballot in the voter’s correct polling location, such as those involving the county and state. A bipartisan team must transpose the selections for applicable races onto new ballots so they can be fed into the scanner/tabulator to be tallied — a task that will be completed during Monday’s adjudication, Cook said.

There were several reasons 86 provisional ballots were rejected, according to Cook:

• 41 were cast by people not registered to vote.

• 12 voters had already cast a mail ballot. It’s possible they were concerned their mail ballots had not been received by the county.

• 12 were registered to vote outside this county.

• 13 had no outer envelope signature.

• Six ballots were not inserted in the required inner secrecy envelope.

• Two had no outer return envelope.

The board postponed a decision on eight ballots that had the required outer envelope voter signatures but were missing necessary signatures from the polling place judge of elections or minority inspector. The election bureau will contact the judges of elections to see if they will verify and sign the outer envelopes, so impacted voters are not penalized with a ballot rejection through no fault of their own.

Mail ballots

Most of the rejected mail ballots — 95 — stemmed from voters failing to sign the outer return envelopes.

Another 34 were missing inner secrecy envelopes, while eight were not placed inside outer return envelopes.

23 had errors in the affirmation section that must be filled out if a disabled voter needs assistance.

One had a mark on the secrecy envelope identifying the voter, which means it violated confidentiality and could not be accepted as a result.

Three voters did not return the actual ballot in their packet.

The board agreed to accept mail ballots with issues, based on additional research and consideration.

For example, one ballot had an empty voter signature box, but the voter signed in another spot. Four ballots were damaged through the postal delivery process, but the results can be counted through a transposed ballot. Four had superfluous markings on the secrecy envelope, but the board determined they did not identify the voter and, therefore, could be counted.

Results

Vote tallies from the accepted ballots were uploaded to the county’s public election results database at luzernecounty.org on Thursday afternoon.

This increased the county’s unofficial vote tally to 78,902 — an addition of 494 ballots cast.

While 600 provisional and mail ballots were accepted on Thursday, Cook said the remaining ones will require further review or work before they can be uploaded. For instance, transposing will be necessary for the 51 county provisional voters who appeared at the wrong polling place and mail ballots damaged during delivery, she said.

Monday’s adjudication will begin at 9 a.m. on the third floor (courtroom A) of the Penn Place Building, 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre.

Additional sessions will be scheduled as necessary to complete the process, which also includes tallying write-in votes, audits, and the preparation of a reconciliation report.

Nov. 24 is the deadline to certify the election results, Cook said.