Luzerne County’s election bureau will upload all mail ballots returned to date by Thursday, county Manager Romilda Crocamo said Wednesday.
The number of returned ballots on the state’s daily report was 19,324 on Wednesday morning, but Crocamo said approximately 24,000 were processed as received by the afternoon, with another batch set for uploading Wednesday evening.
Uploading will remain a priority as new batches arrive, Crocamo said.
“All ballots will be updated as fast as possible while the election bureau is performing all other functions that we need to do and are doing with constant, politically motivated interruptions,” Crocamo said.
As examples of other tasks in the works, Crocamo said the bureau is preparing bags of election items for judges of elections at Election Day polling places and certificates for poll watchers.
Crocamo also noted the bureau approved and prepared on-demand mail ballots for 370 voters who appeared at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, which was the last day this option was available.
County Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams had observed Luzerne County’s mail ballot return percentages appeared to be lower than those in some other counties and said she had confidence it would be “all hands on deck” to tackle ballot return processing as the bureau did to complete an influx of mail ballot and voter registration requests.
Williams said timely processing of received ballots will reassure voters checking the status of their mail ballot through the state’s increasingly popular online tracker. Available at pavoterservices.pa.gov, the tracker requires voters to enter their name as it appears on the mail ballot application, their date of birth and county.
As a test sample, a reporter verified the mail ballots of two county voters deposited in the Hazleton drop box on Oct. 24 were marked as received by the election bureau in the state ballot tracker on Wednesday.
Timely processing of received ballots also is important to detect those with missing voter signatures or handwritten date issues on outer envelopes or the absence of the required inner secrecy envelope, Williams said.
When such fatal flaws are discovered leading up to the election, the bureau follows state guidance and alerts impacted voters if they provided an email address on their mail ballot application.
Those receiving alerts of voided or otherwise deficient ballots will be able to appear at the election bureau to submit a new ballot or fill out a paper provisional ballot at their polling place on Election Day. Provisional ballots are reviewed last by the board to verify nobody is voting twice.
Voters have until 8 p.m. on Election Day to return their ballots. The ballots must be physically in the election bureau by the deadline, and postmarks do not count.