Luzerne County Election Bureau fighting for new ballot sorting machine

Two nights in a row, Luzerne County Deputy Election Director Beth McBride appeared before county government bodies to make her case for the grant-funded purchase of a mail ballot sorting machine that would speed up the tallying of election results and streamline operations.

McBride unflinchingly responded to questions about the machine raised during Tuesday’s council meeting and Wednesday’s election board meeting.

In summary, she said the machine will reduce the need to pull county workers away from duties in other departments to assist with the scanning and time-stamping of at least 18,000 incoming mail ballots leading up to the election. Based on the envelope weight, the machine will instantly weed out those missing inner secrecy envelopes or containing more than the one permissible ballot inside, sorting those for further review. It also will help with election auditing.

Council may hold a special meeting to vote on the purchase because McBride said there is only a week to act for the machine to be ordered and in place for the Nov. 8 general election.

Legal question

The purchase has become convoluted, largely due to a question of whether the decision to purchase the machine ultimately rests with council, the administration or the volunteer citizen election board.

Questions about which entity controls different election-related decisions have gone unanswered for years under the county’s home rule government structure, which replaced a system in which three elected commissioners both oversaw daily county operations and served as the election board.

Election Board member Jim Mangan expressed his frustration about the lack of clarity Wednesday. Instructions are made to stay in the correct lanes, but nobody is taking ownership over defining those lanes, he said. Based on email chains about election matters he’s receiving, a lot of people “have their hands in this pie” without clear direction.

“I haven’t danced like this since probably high school,” Mangan said, describing the situation as embarrassing. “Who owns it? Let’s get to the bottom line.”

Election Board member Alyssa Fusaro said state law seems clear that equipment purchases are decided by the election board, and the election bureau is increasingly making decisions without a board vote.

County Assistant Solicitor Paula Radick said the law office is in the process of reviewing the machine purchase legal question because a request was made by council the previous night.

County Council members Brian Thornton and Stephen J. Urban had asserted the election board should be making the purchase decision, not the bureau.

County Chief Solicitor Harry W. Skene told council he believes the election bureau decides which equipment is purchased, although it should consult and work with the election board.

Councilman Brian Thornton sent Skene a request Wednesday morning seeking the section of law that allows the bureau to purchase the machine without an election board vote. Thornton said he has spent a good amount of time reading state laws and “cannot find that language anywhere.”

“The purchase of election equipment clearly falls under the authority of our Election Board and not with Ms. McBride or her department,” Thornton wrote.

Council became involved in the decision because the purchase — $315,000 with annual $35,000 licensing and service agreements for five years — meets the spending threshold for future years that requires council approval under the charter.

A majority of council members had supported the purchase going into Tuesday’s meeting, but a majority voted to hold off on a vote to allow for work session discussion based on questions that had surfaced.

Purchasing policy

Thornton, Fusaro and Councilman Kevin Lescavage also are questioning why the election bureau did not seek proposals from other vendors.

McBride said other proposals were not required because the Agilis Mail Ballot Sorting System from Runbeck Election Solutions is the only one that meets the bureau’s needs, known as “sole source.” She said she thoroughly cleared this with the county law office.

“People seem to think I made the decision on my own. I did not,” McBride said during the election board meeting.

She also said there seems to be a belief she put together her request in 15 minutes.

“I would not bring anything forward without doing my due diligence. I hope in time you will realize this,” said McBride, who was hired for the position July 15. The administration is still searching for an election director to replace Michael Susek, who left Aug. 11 after eight months in the position.

The Agilis machine stands alone in meeting the bureau’s needs because it is “election specific” and contains software within the machine that is not offered by other companies, McBride said. This system also already is set up to interface with the state’s voter tracking system, she said.

Fusaro presented another option from a different vendor that has agreed to lease its machine to the county for $48,000 annually for two years, which would allow the county to then purchase it or return it if the county is displeased or finds it is no longer needed, she said.

McBride said this other system was not considered for the reasons she cited for choosing the Agilis machine as a sole source. She also said no other Pennsylvania counties are using this system, while the Agilis one has been implemented in Dauphin County and is under consideration in several other counties in the state. McBride said she does not want this county to be a test case for implementing a system from a vendor not yet used elsewhere in the state.

Relieving staff

County Manager Randy Robertson told the election board the pulling of county staff from other departments to assist with elections has been a top complaint from managers, and the new machine would address that concern.

Elections Operations Manager Emily Cook said approximately 15 employees must be pulled from other departments to assist, setting them back in completing their own job duties.

McBride said this reliance on other staff is not “sustainable.”

The administration plans to purchase the machine using a new $1.04 million state election integrity grant designed to ensure counties across the state have their mail ballots counted by midnight on election night.