A behind-the-scenes look at the Nov. 8 general election

With all the moving parts and changing protocols, Luzerne County voters may be unaware of what’s happening behind the scenes for the Nov. 8 general election.

Based on information from multiple election officials, here’s a chronological explainer:

Before 7 a.m., Election Day

Poll workers in all 186 voting precincts must ready their polling places for the 7 a.m. start of in-person voting.

Voters will sign in on paper poll books instead of electronic ones due to a continuing county assessment of which option should be used in future elections.

Two lists were included with the Nov. 8 paper poll books — the names of voters who requested mail ballots after the books were printed and the names of voters in each precinct who inadvertently received a second copy of their ballot, said Acting Election Director Beth McBride.

The second list was necessary because voters who received a mail ballot can vote on the ballot marking devices at the polls if they turn in their mail ballot packet to be “spoiled,” or voided, McBride said.

County election officials don’t want any potential for a voter who received two ballots to cast one by mail and then spoil the extra one at the polls to secure a second vote, which would be a crime, McBride said.

For any voters seeking to spoil their ballots, poll workers have been instructed to consult the list of duplicates and immediately contact the bureau for further instruction if one of the voters in on the list, McBride said.

Due to a data export error, 937 county voters received two copies of the Nov. 8 general election mail ballots they requested, the election bureau said last week.

Impacted voters were advised to disregard and destroy the second copy. Even if the voter attempted to cast both mail ballots, the second one would not be accepted because they both contain an identical bar code tied to that voter in the state system, McBride said.

McBride said Friday the bureau has verified the system rejects the second ballot.

7 a.m., Election Day

A mix of election bureau employees and temporary workers — all sworn in and vetted through background checks — will convene in a third-floor courtroom at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre to start processing mail ballots.

This process is known as pre-canvassing.

While they could ease into this work in the past and shut down for lunch, new state legislation requires them to start promptly at 7 a.m. and continue without interruption.

This legislation is aimed at making sure unofficial mail ballot tallies are released the night of the election instead of days later. The state provided a corresponding $1.04 million election integrity grant that the county used, in part, to bring in outside helpers and buy a machine that drastically reduces the time it takes to sort ballots and mark them as received in the state tracking system.

Pre-canvassing is conducted under the observation of the bipartisan county Election Board and also political party officials, candidates and candidate representatives with watcher certificates.

Ballots are kept in the election bureau on the second floor of the building in a locked room under round-the-clock surveillance. The ballots are transported to the third floor in a rolling cage by teams of workers.

Those not flagged for outer envelope defects are placed in an automatic envelope opener so workers can remove the inner secrecy envelopes.

Sealed secrecy envelopes with no issues are then passed through an automatic envelope opener and distributed to workers who must then remove, unfold and flatten the ballots so they can be fed into a high-speed scanner/tabulator.

Noon, Election Day

Throughout Election Day, election board members — always one Democrat and one Republican together — will compile lists of voters who submitted ballots without an outer-envelope signature or date or missing secrecy envelopes.

These lists are then be provided to party leaders so they can attempt to contact the voters and inform them of their option to cast a provisional ballot at the polls before 8 p.m. due to the defect that will prevent their mail ballot from being counted.

This is known as “curing.”

Other defects that could prompt a curing contact include outer envelope dates that don’t fall between the mailing of the ballots and Election Day (known as date “out of range”) or those with voter-identifying marks on the secrecy envelope.

County Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams is optimistic a mostly complete curing list can be compiled early because the new ballot sorter has allowed the identification and categorizing of most ballot defects ahead of time. Based on the envelope weight, the sorter weeds out those missing required inner secrecy envelopes or containing more than the one permissible ballot inside.

A second and final curing list will be supplied to party representatives around 4 p.m., she said.

5 p.m. Election Day

If the bureau’s projections are correct, pre-canvassing of most mail ballots should be completed by this time, leaving only those dropped off by voters at Penn Place before 8 p.m.

Using ultra-conservative estimates, the bureau believes each worker can open and process about 100 mail ballots per hour. At least 25 workers will be processing, which means 25,000 ballots could be completed within 10 hours, McBride said.

The county ended up issuing mail ballots to 33,657 voters who requested them before the deadline, and 24,433 completed ballots had arrived back in the bureau by Friday, McBride said.

McBride noted the time estimate for completion was a “worst case scenario” that did not factor in the planned use of the automatic envelope openers or high-speed scanner/tabulator.

Williams said the ballot sorter will speed up pre-canvassing because it eliminates the need for workers to check each outer envelope for defects and, if warranted, fill out slips identifying the issue.

8 p.m., Election Day

The county cannot start recording and publishing the results from any ballots, including mail ones, until the polls close at 8 p.m. This stage is known as canvassing.

Under the new state legislation, the county must start canvassing mail ballots at 8 p.m. and continue without interruption.

Results will be posted and updated at luzernecounty.org after the polls close. The state’s electionreturns.pa.gov site will provide updated unofficial results in state races.

If the mail ballots are mostly processed by the afternoon as expected, those results would likely be publicly posted before tallies from polling places.

12:01 a.m. the next day

The new legislation requires county election boards to announce and publicly post unofficial results from mail ballots by one minute after midnight, as Election Day draws to a close.

Noon, day after the election

The five-citizen, volunteer election board is set to publicly meet at noon to start the adjudication process in Courtroom A on the third floor of Penn Place, with the initial focus on mail ballots with deficiencies.

The board always rejects mail ballots with no signatures and those without inner secrecy envelopes, known as “naked ballots,” Williams said.

Ballots without dates must be segregated and not counted at this time unless the county receives a different directive based on a future state court ruling, she said.

There are a range of other anomalies requiring board review.

The board formalized the process to make it more transparent and understandable.

After describing each defect and the number of impacted ballots, the board asks the solicitor to discuss the relevant state law and make a recommendation. Board members then discuss the matter and accept comments from party representatives before voting on whether to accept or reject the ballots.

Provisional ballots also must be checked to verify the voters were registered and did not also cast a mail ballot.

“The board really goes through everything with a fine-toothed comb. Every member wants to scrutinize each ballot,” Williams said.