Angela Scocozzo, left, together with Carl Lisowski and David Skoronski help process mail-in ballots Tuesday night at Luzerne County’s Penn Place building in Wilkes-Barre.
                                 Kevin Carroll | Times Leader

Angela Scocozzo, left, together with Carl Lisowski and David Skoronski help process mail-in ballots Tuesday night at Luzerne County’s Penn Place building in Wilkes-Barre.

Kevin Carroll | Times Leader

Luzerne County’s complete primary election results won’t be available for a day or two because workers were unable to open and scan in more than half of the ballots that had been mailed in or dropped off.

Nearly 40,000 residents ended up taking advantage of a new mail-in ballot option for convenience or to avoid safety concerns with in-person voting at polling places during the coronavirus pandemic.

By 10 p.m., workers had tabulated results from approximately 14,000 mail-in ballots, requiring counting to resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday in a courtroom at the county-owned Penn Place building in downtown Wilkes-Barre that also houses the election bureau, said county Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik.

Partial unofficial results were posted Tuesday night from both the mail-in ballots that had been counted so far and ballots cast by voters at 58 polling places.

In total, nearly 53,500 voters had requested mail-in ballots, which means those that did not turn them in had the option to vote by provisional ballot at their polling places. Provisional ballots are counted last.

The county Election Board will have “a lot of work to do” reviewing a higher volume of provisional ballots and other adjudication matters at its official count, set for Friday morning, said county Manager C. David Pedri.

Mail-in counting

The cumbersome process of tallying the mail-in ballots could not start until 7 a.m. on Election Day under state law, officials said.

That’s when election workers were permitted to start opening outer envelopes that hold sealed secrecy envelopes containing the actual completed ballots.

Before the ballots could be fed into one of the three central scanners/tabulators, election teams had to shuffle the secrecy envelopes, open them, unfold the ballots and flatten out the paper creases.

County assistant solicitor Michael Butera, who handles election matters, said one of the scanners ended up idle because the pace of opening only warranted two.

“It’s been very tedious. The scanners are not the hold-up. The hold-up is the physical opening of envelopes,” Butera said.

County Manager C. David Pedri said multiple teams did a “phenomenal” job getting through a significant portion of the mail-ins. He plans to dissect the “laborious” process to figure out if there are ways to accelerate the tally, noting there is a limit to the number of people who can be involved due to security and monitoring concerns.

The “best case” would be for state legislators to allow counties to start opening the envelopes and smoothing out the ballots the Saturday before the election so they would be prepped to immediately scan and tabulate on Election Day, he said.

Election concerns

Butera said some issues surfaced, but no more than usual.

In addition to the high volume of mail-in votes, the county temporarily reduced polling locations due to pandemic-related difficulties securing enough poll workers and sites. At polling places, non-disabled voters cast ballots by paper while those with disabilities used the county’s new paper-trail voting machines for the first time.

“To be honest, I thought it was a fairly smooth day considering all the things that went on,” Butera said.

Butera said a few Democrats and Republicans called to report they received the wrong party ballot. He stressed voters should always report incorrect ballots at their polling place before they fill them out so they can receive the correct one.

There also were some “personality issues” among judges of election stemming from multiple precincts consolidated at the same sites, but Butera said they were resolved.

Some people complained the county was too careful requiring masks and social distancing, while others said the county was not careful enough, he said.

Despite extensive public announcements, some were unaware their polling sites had changed and had to be directed to the proper location, he said.

County Councilman Stephen J. Urban said he witnessed or received reports of several concerns.

He said he spoke to several poll workers who indicated they were not offered adequate training.

Urban also said he was aware of two people who went to the polls to vote by provisional ballot because they had received the wrong party mail-in ballot.

He also said at least one polling place had provided ballots for the wrong precinct until the problem was detected, and he complained that one polling place had an electronic ballot marking device still sealed at 1:15 p.m. even though he argues it should have been ready for use in case someone disabled requested to use it.

“There are too many mistakes. In my opinion, the election is spoiled,” Urban said.

Butera said he believes most poll workers received ample training, although some slots had to be filled as late as Monday due to a shortage. All electronic machines were accessible to voters upon request, but some may have remained sealed if nobody asked to use them, he said.

Pedri said he will perform a post-primary assessment to determine if any improvements are warranted for the high-turnout November general.

“I’m very proud of the way our team stepped up,” Pedri said.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.