Luzerne County mail ballot tallying won’t be completed tonight

Due to a staffing shortage, Luzerne County won’t be tallying an estimated 11,000 mail ballots this evening, officials said.

As of 6 p.m., workers had unsealed, processed and scanned approximately 7,000 of the 17,921 mail ballots returned by voters, said County Acting Manager Romilda Crocamo.

Crocamo said the shortage stems largely from a funding change. Since mail ballot voting took effect in 2020, the county was able to use federal coronavirus assistance funding to pay workers overtime to stay through the evening processing the ballots. Without that funding in this election, overtime was not offered because it would have to be covered by the election bureau’s budget, she said.

Only 10 to 15 workers are assisting with the mail ballot processing, compared to approximately 35 in last November’s general election, Crocamo said.

The workers were sworn in this morning to start unsealing mail envelopes and scanning the ballots, known as pre-canvassing, inside a third-floor courtroom at the county-owned Penn Place Building.

The administration expects 13 county workers will return to Penn Place Wednesday morning to continue processing the mail ballots, Crocamo said.

In total, the county issued 22,933 mail ballots to voters who submitted applications requesting them, the administration said.

Mail ballots must be physically in the election bureau by 8 p.m. tonight to be counted.

It remains to be seen if the delayed tallying of 11,000 votes will prevent any races from being called after the unofficial returns are tallied.

Polls close at 8 p.m.

A party breakdown of the mail ballots was not immediately available, although the option has been more popular with Democrats than Republicans in recent elections.

As usual, results will be posted and updated at luzernecounty.org after the polls close.