Luzerne County nearing issuance of May 19 primary election mail ballots

Luzerne County plans to issue May 19 primary election mail ballots in approximately two weeks, county Election Director Emily Cook said Monday.

The ballots must be approved by the county Election Board before they can be mailed, and the board’s next meeting is April 15, Cook said.

The board did not approve the ballot at its March meeting due to several pending candidate petition challenges that have since been resolved.

Election Board Chairwoman Christine Boyle said Monday that the board has access to primary ballot information and expects to vote on the final ballot at the April 15 meeting.

Cook said her office is preparing to promptly mail the ballots after that meeting.

May 5 is the primary mail ballot distribution deadline, but county officials have worked to send them out sooner so voters have ample time to receive, complete, and return them by 8 p.m. on Election Day. The ballots must be physically in the bureau by that deadline because postmarks do not count.

In last year’s general election, 25,000 county voters requested mail ballots.

Drop boxes

Runbeck Election Services recently delivered a new replacement mail ballot drop box to the county’s Penn Place Building in Wilkes-Barre at no additional charge, Cook said.

The company’s prior pilot program box did not capture photographs of voters depositing ballots as promised for the November general election. Runbeck sold the box to the county for $12,000 as part of a pilot program implemented for the 2025 primary election.

Runbeck representatives believe an internal component issue prevented the main and backup storage of recorded photographs, Cook has said.

The company indicated the issue has been addressed in the non-pilot model of its drop box. It delivered the new version to the county last week and provided staff training, Cook said Monday.

A standard mailbox-style box will remain in the county-owned Broad Street Business Exchange Building in Hazleton for the primary, as it has since 2023, Cook said. The county is in the process of selling this building to a private company, but the new owner is willing to continue hosting the box, officials said.

New equipment

Cook said the county also has received voting equipment from Hart InterCivic that will be used in the primary.

Voters will fill out selections on paper ballots and then feed them into Hart scanners for tallying. Previously, voters made choices on computerized touchscreen ballot-marking devices, printed the ballot for review, and then fed it into a tabulator. A ballot-marking device will still be set up at each polling place for voters with disabilities.

The electronic ballot-marking devices prevented voters from selecting more than the allowable number of candidates, raising concerns about how such “overvoting” would be stopped in the switch to paper.

Cook said Monday the Hart tabulators will be programmed to reject ballots containing overvotes. In such situations, voters would have the option to formally void their ballot, which means it would not be cast, and then fill out a new one.

Poll work training on the Hart system is set to begin on April 21.

A voter education program will also be launched before the election, she said.

Polling places, registration

All 186 voting precinct polling places have been set, and there are no changes since the November 2025 general election, Cook said.

The list is posted on the election page at luzernecounty.org.

The voter registration deadline to cast a ballot in the primary is a month away, or May 4, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in a reminder released Monday.

Schmidt said the registration only takes a few minutes.

“Once you are registered, you can then exercise your fundamental right to vote and let your voice be heard in the upcoming primary election,” he said in the release.

Pennsylvania has closed primaries, which means only Republican and Democratic voters get to nominate which candidates advance to the general elections.

According to the latest state voter registration update posted Monday, the county added 322 voters in the last month, since March 2.

Continuing a trend, the greatest growth was from those not Democrats or Republicans. Those with no affiliation or other affiliations increased by 199, for a new total of 30,833 voters in that category. Republicans added 81, bringing the party’s total to 91,217. Democrats picked up 42 voters, resulting in a total of 84,080 voters.

Information on voter registration is posted on the county election page at luzernecounty.org.

The state’s voter information website, vote.pa.gov, is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese and offers a polling place locator and tips for first-time voters, mail voters, elderly and disabled voters, and members of the military.