With hundreds of provisional and flagged mail ballots factored in, Luzerne County ended up with a 30.57% voter turnout in the Nov. 2 general election.
An unofficial final tally released Tuesday evening added approximately 700 ballots accepted by the county Election Board during several days of post-election adjudication.
In total, 61,864 of 202,389 registered county voters cast ballots, according to the results posted at luzernecounty.org.
This is an improvement from the comparable November 2017 general election, when 49,654 voters cast ballots, resulting in a 24.25% turnout based on the 204,757 total registration at that time, records show.
A breakdown of turnout by political party registration is not yet available because that information is still being uploaded, according to the county and state.
Penn Lake Park borough had the highest Nov. 2 turnout — 68.8% — with 214 of 311 registered voters casting ballots, the county’s tally said.
Borough Council President Paul Rogan was not surprised.
“We have a very active electorate here,” Rogan said.
Wilkes-Barre Ward 12 had the lowest turnout of 11.4% among the county’s 186 precincts. Only 151 of 1,321 voters cast ballots in that ward Nov. 2, the tally says.
Two other Wilkes-Barre precincts also were at the bottom in turnout — Ward 8 (13.21%) and Ward 14 (13.36%) — followed by Hazleton Ward 2, which had a 13.83% turnout.
Ties
There were ties in 172 races Nov. 2, according to county Interim Administrative Services Division Head Angela Gavlick and Deputy Election Director Eryn Harvey.
The election bureau will break ties starting at noon Friday in third-floor Courtroom A at the county’s Penn Place Building on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Market Street in Wilkes-Barre.
To break a tie, numbered “pills” are shaken in a bottle and drawn for each candidate, with the lowest-numbered choice declared the winner.
In situations where the ties involve write-in votes instead of candidates on the ballot, the bureau must notify the winners to determine if they want to accept the seat.
The tie-breaker is open to the public and candidates. Candidates should check the county’s online election results to determine if they are impacted.
If candidates don’t appear in person or send a proxy appointed in writing before noon Friday, the county will select a number on their behalf.
Shickshinny
The new results revealed Sonja M. Sprague did not win a borough council seat.
Ballots instructed voters to select four candidates because the borough had incorrectly informed the county election bureau that four seats seats were open instead of the correct three, county officials said.
As a remedy, Sprague said the borough asked the candidates to sign a form acknowledging only the top three would be seated. She came in fourth, with 101 votes, according to the unofficial results. The winners and their vote counts: James Wido, 111; Jessica Bolles, 109; and Rosalie Whitebread, 108.
Sprague said Wednesday she is not upset.
“People voiced their opinion. I will run again the next time around,” she said.
Plymouth Township
Due to a vendor mistake not detected by the county, mail ballots the county sent to 323 Plymouth Township voters incorrectly stated one supervisor seat was open instead of the correct two seats. The county fixed the error on the electronic ballot marking devices at polling places and sent corrected replacement ballots to impacted voters.
Township Supervisor Gale Conrad said Wednesday there were “a lot of frustrated and irritated voters” on Election Day because they did not receive the corrected mail ballots until the day before the election, and some did not vote as a result.
Overall, 325 of the township’s 1,151 registered voters cast ballots by mail or at the polls on Election Day, for a turnout of 28.24%, the county’s tally shows.
The correct number of two open township supervisor seats had been listed in this year’s primary, and Joseph Yudichak and Thomas Kachurak received the nominations and were elected Nov. 2. Yudichak received 224 votes, and Kachurak secured 213, the results say.
Conrad said she will hold the county at its word that ballot proofing will be initiated sooner and stepped up in future elections.