With a month left to prepare for the May 16 primary election, Luzerne County’s Election Bureau started mandatory public testing of voting equipment Monday at the election warehouse in Wilkes-Barre.
No problems were identified during the first day of “logic and accuracy testing,” which will resume Tuesday, said Election Operations Manager Emily Cook.
The election bureau decided primary voters at the polls will mark their selections by hand on paper ballots instead of using electronic ballot marking devices that generate ballot printouts for review.
However, equipment must be tested because voters will still be required to feed the hand-marked ballots into the county’s Dominion Voting Systems scanners to be cast, as they did with the printouts.
In addition to the scanners, each of the 186 precincts must still have a ballot marking device available for those with disabilities in the primary. The public testing also covers those.
Test ballots — both hand-marked and printed from the devices — are being inserted in the precinct scanners as part of the public check, Cook said.
This testing ensures all selections are correctly counted by the scanner software and that there are no issues with the paper size or stock, Cook said.
Some test hand-marked ballots also are intentionally filled out incorrectly to verify the scanners reject them, Cook said.
The scanners are supposed to detect and alert voters if the ballots contain more than the allowable number of selections in a race (overvoting) or have “extraneous markings,” such as writing in the margins, she said. In such situations, voters will have the option to cast the ballot as is or void it through the judge-of-elections so a new ballot can be filled out.
Cook said voters at the polls will receive Paper Mate Flair pens and should completely fill in the bubbles to mark their choices, as instructed at the top of each ballot. Voters making write-in selections should blacken the oval next to that line and legibly write the name.
Logic and accuracy testing also similarly is performed for central count scanners that are used for mail ballot processing at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre on Election Day.
Other updates
The deadline to request mail ballots is 5 p.m. on May 9, although officials advise applying sooner, if possible, because that only allows a week for the ballots to be mailed to voters and returned to the county.
To date, approximately 19,360 mail ballots have been requested for the primary —4,759 Republican and 14,597 Democratic, said county Election Director Eryn Harvey.
In comparison, 33,261 mail ballots were requested for the November general, including 7,686 Republican and 23,266 Democratic, she said.
Voters of any registration are permitted to vote in general elections, but Pennsylvania has closed primaries in which only Democrats and Republicans select candidates advancing to the general.
The county is still on track to send mail ballots on April 26, Harvey said.
Citizens attend
County Controller Walter Griffith watched Monday’s testing.
He strongly opposes allowing voters to correct overvoting once they have placed their ballot in the scanner, saying there should not be “do-overs.” He said he applies this same thinking to mail ballots, disagreeing with curing of envelope deficiencies after voters mailed or dropped them off.
The bureau has argued that voters were alerted of overvoting with the ballot marking devices.
Griffith said he plans to vote by mail for the primary because he wants to take his time making selections. He said he doesn’t care how people vote — in-person or by mail — but believes state legislators should pass a law explicitly governing the allowance or banning of drop boxes.
Republican county council candidate Ronald Knapp also monitored the testing Monday morning, saying active public participation is essential in election matters.
“I want election integrity for all candidates,” Knapp said.
Local resident Theodore “T.J.” Fitzgerald also attended and asked questions. An outspoken critic, he said he will be the first to publicly commend the bureau if the upcoming election is error-free and hopes that is the case.