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The Republican ballots that appeared on Luzerne County’s electronic ballot marking devices in polling places incorrectly contained an “official Democratic ballot” heading, prompting a firestorm of outrage.
Complaints weren’t limited to Republicans.
Democrat Matthew Vough, who was on the ballot seeking nomination for a second county council term, said he received reports from several dozen Democrats who said his name did not appear on their ballot.
Vough said there’s a strong possibility these and other Democrats incorrectly received the Republican ballot on their ballot marking device and thought it must be the right one because of the incorrect heading. Vough said he knows this happened because a Democrat in his own family received the Republican ballot and reported the error to obtain the correct one.
“Who knows how many Democrats voted for Republican nominees? Who knows how many votes I lost as a result? This error didn’t just affect Republicans,” Vough said.
County Election Director Bob Morgan said the error occurred during vendor programming of the devices. The county’s voting system from Dominion Voting Systems Inc. was implemented last year as part of a state mandate to provide a paper trail.
Vough is calling for the county to get rid of the Dominion system, saying he will raise the issue at Tuesday’s council meeting.
“I believe we need to do whatever we have to to get out of that contract,” Vough said.
County Republican Chairman Justin Behrens said the party will be further investigating this matter to “instill the integrity of this election.”
“Somebody needs to be accountable for this mistake, whether it’s the county or Dominion,” Behrens said.
County Councilman Walter Griffith said he was bombarded with complaints about the ballot error since the polls opened at 7 a.m. A Republican candidate for county controller, Griffith questioned why the error was not detected through testing checks after the machines were programmed.
County Councilman Stephen J. Urban sent an email reporting the situation of a Plains Township Republican voter, saying she cast an emergency ballot early Tuesday due to the situation, but she was unable to feed it into the tabulator because they were not yet set up at that time.
“She was advised by the election official to simply hand the ballot over,” Urban said. “As far as I am concerned, our county’s primary is already tainted, and after the dust settles today, there are many in charge that need to resign immediately,” he wrote.
Concerned voters were disenfranchised, the county’s Republican Party filed a court action in the county Court of Common Pleas Tuesday. After negotiations with county officials and the county Democratic Party leaders, they agreed:
• County Republicans uncomfortable with the electronic ballot marking devices would have two paper ballot options before the polls closed at 8 p.m.: emergency ballots or provisional ballots.
Both types of ballots are filled out by hand. Emergency ones are then fed into the tabulators/scanners at polling places, while provisional ones are sealed in envelopes for separate processing.
Either way, officials agreed in the court action that the provisional ballots would be accepted without requiring an affirmation involving two separate signatures by voters — a step that may be unfamiliar to voters and cause their ballots to be disqualified.
• Republican paper ballots cast at the polls would be processed with other returns on election night instead of setting them aside for adjudication at a later date.
• All voting machines, associated equipment and documentation will be secured and locked at a county location in case either party wants to conduct further reviews.
County election officials insisted that all candidates and races on the ballots were correct and that results printed from the ballot marking devices were accurate. Voters must review the printouts and feed them into a tabulator to cast their vote.
Attorney Gene M. Molino, who filed the court action as parliamentarian of the county Republican Party, said he had no evidence or reports that the paper printouts were incorrect.
The court action was an attempt to make sure all Republicans were free to vote with no obstacles due to the error that caused the ballot that popped up on screens to be labeled as an official Democratic one, he said.
“We wanted to ensure that all Republican voters’ votes are legitimately counted,” Molino said.
Representing the county Democratic Party, attorney Neil T. O’Donnell said everyone involved in the settlement discussions wholeheartedly supported the measures.
“Everybody wanted the same thing — to make sure all voters had the opportunity to vote,” O’Donnell said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.