With the Nov. 8 general election nearly three weeks away, Luzerne County’s election bureau is in high gear.
The county has 203,396 voters registered for the general. Residents have one more week, or until Oct. 24, to register at the county election bureau or online at pavoterservices.pa.gov.
A breakdown of county registrations: 93,004 Democrats, 83,629 Republicans and 26,763 voters with other affiliations or no affiliations, records show. Voters are free to pick candidates of any party affiliation in the general.
For perspective on where Luzerne County stands at the statewide level, its registration ranks thirteenth among the 67 counties, according to state statistics.
Philadelphia is at the top, with 1.06 million registered voters, followed by Allegheny County, which has 930,375. The other counties with higher counts: Montgomery (602,385), Bucks (478,601), Delaware (412,100), Chester (378,898), Lancaster (349,695), York (309,689), Berks (265,861), Westmoreland (247,269), Lehigh (237,058) and Northampton (222,993).
Mail ballots
To date, more than 26,500 Luzerne County voters have requested mail ballots for the general.
Mail ballots were sent Oct. 13, and additional requests are being processed daily, said county Acting Election Director Beth McBride.
The deadline to request mail ballots is Nov. 1, although officials have advised applying sooner, if possible, because that only allows a week for the ballots to be mailed to voters and returned to the county.
Completed mail ballots must be received in the county election bureau by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Voters can return their ballots by mail or deposit them in one of the county’s four drop boxes inside buildings.
The bureau has announced the drop box hours for the general election:
• Wright Township Volunteer Fire Dept., 477 S. Main Road, Mountain Top — Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closing on Nov. 7 at 5 p.m.
• Pittston Memorial Library, 47 Broad St., Pittston — Monday and Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closing Nov. 7 at 4 p.m.
• Misericordia University (Passan Hall), 100 Lake St., Dallas — Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; weekends, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closing Nov. 7 at 5 p.m.
• Penn Place, 20 N Pennsylvania Ave, Wilkes-Barre — Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Penn Place, which is county-owned and houses the election bureau, is the only drop box location available on Election Day, and it will be accessible until 8 p.m. that day.
Mail ballot reminders
Mail voters receive instructions, a ballot, an unmarked white secrecy envelope and an outer envelope that contains the voter’s name and a label with a bar code that, when scanned, identifies that voter in the state’s database.
Some reminders to ensure mail ballots are counted:
• After filling out their ballot, voters must place it in the secrecy envelope, seal it and then put that envelope inside the one with the label/barcode to be returned to the county.
• Don’t write anything on the outside of the secrecy envelope, especially names or identifying marks.
• Sign and date the outer envelope where indicated.
The date is particularly important for the general election due to varying court rulings on whether ballots without the date can be counted.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had concluded in May the state election law’s requirement of a date next to the voter’s signature on the outer return envelope was “immaterial.” The U.S. Supreme Court last week declared this 3rd Circuit decision moot. Acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman responded by saying county elections officials should continue counting mail ballots containing inaccurate or no signatures, asserting the Supreme Court decision was not based on the merits of the issue and does not impact a prior separate state Commonwealth Court ruling in favor of counting ballots without properly dated exterior envelopes.
County Election Board member Alyssa Fusaro has requested a discussion of the matter at tonight’s election board meeting, which starts at 5 p.m. at the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Instructions for remote attendance are posted under council’s authorities, boards and commissions online meeting link at luzernecounty.org.
Disabled voters can complete a form designating a third party to deliver a mail ballot on their behalf. Otherwise, voters must return only their own ballots under state law. A link to the designee form is posted at luzernecounty.org.
Letters were sent to all county nursing and personal care homes explaining the legal limitations for ballot delivery.
Sorting machine
The election bureau will receive supplemental training and on-site support later this week on a new grant-funded mail ballot sorting machine, McBride said.
Bureau workers will then hold a presentation for the election board on how the machine will be used, she said.
The election bureau requested the machine to speed up election night tallying and reduce staff needed to manually scan mail ballot outer envelopes to mark them as received. Based on the envelope weight, the machine also will instantly weed out those missing required inner secrecy envelopes or containing more than the one permissible ballot inside, the administration has said.
The machine was purchased with a new $1.04 million election integrity grant provided so counties across the state have their mail ballots counted by midnight on election night.
In-person voting
A final list of general election polling locations will be approved by the election board tonight and posted on the election bureau page Tuesday.
To help voters prepare, the bureau has posted sample ballots on the election page at luzernecounty.org.
Poll worker training is scheduled to begin this week, McBride said.