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A Congressional committee spent three hours Tuesday collecting testimony and asking questions about Luzerne County’s November general election paper shortage.
At the close of the hearing in Washington, D.C., the Committee on House Administration Chairman — U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisconsin — thanked the seven witnesses and said each committee member will have five days to submit additional information.
The witnesses: Jim Bognet, a Republican Congressional candidate in the November general election; Darin Gibbons, counsel for the Republican National Committee; Donald Palmer, commissioner of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, executive director of Action Together NEPA; and citizens Theodore Fitzgerald, Benjamin Herring and James Walsh.
In his opening statement, Steil highlighted that nearly one-third of the county’s voting precincts ran out of proper-stock paper on Nov. 8, some shortly after the polls opened. Amid the confusion, some poll workers rushed to stores to buy standard copy paper, while others made copies of ballots, he said.
Steil said it was disappointing county representatives did not accept the committee’s invitation to appear and answer straightforward questions, and he added he hopes they are listening to the hearing.
The goal of the hearing is to prevent such a “disaster” from reoccurring, he said.
All three invited county officials — county Deputy Election Director Beth Gilbert, Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams and County Council Chairwoman Kendra Radle — declined invitations to attend, primarily because the county District Attorney’s Office is still actively investigating the paper shortage.
Williams said the county law office advised her against attending due to the pending DA investigation.
County DA Sam Sanguedolce said last week his office is thoroughly investigating the cause and effect of the Nov. 8 election paper problem.
U.S. Rep. Joseph D. Morelle, D-New York, the ranking minority committee member, said the paper shortage is “inexcusable” and that nobody disputes something went wrong.
However, he asked why the committee is not waiting until the DA’s report is released, indicating he expects the report will answer many of the committee’s questions about why polling places ran out of paper for the electronic ballot marking devices, who was responsible for ordering the correct type of paper and the overall impact on voters.
Morelle also noted 10 of 11 county council members are Republican and that council hired the top county manager who ultimately was responsible for election bureau staffing.
He also defended the three invited county officials for declining to participate amid the ongoing county investigation and asserted the title of Tuesday’s hearing — “Government Voter Suppression in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania” — “more than implies” the paper shortage was a conspiracy.
He pointed to the FBI definition of voter suppression as intentionally deceiving qualified voters to prevent them from voting — a federal crime.
Morelle said county election boards are supposed to report irregularities to the county DA under state statutes and noted Sanguedolce is a Republican and qualified to conduct such an investigation.
If questions remain after the DA report is released, the Congressional committee could convene another hearing to address them, Morelle said.
U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Georgia, defended the hearing description, saying the Britannica definition of voter suppression as a measure or strategy whose purpose or practical effect is to reduce voting.
Loudermilk said he believes the hearing is timely and important and predicted it will take multiple hearings and further investigation to get to the truth of what happened and ensure it does not occur again.
Many of the witnesses statements touched on complaints and observations that were aired during heated public comment at county government meetings in the wake of the November general.
Bognet told the committee he believes the county has been using the pending DA investigation as a “shield.”
He spoke of the county’s extraordinary need to seek court approval to keep polling places open two extra hours, or until 10 p.m., due to the paper shortage.
Bognet referenced an elderly Hazleton man who appeared at his polling place with his wife shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Day to cast their ballots during the extended hours, only to learn that the overseer of this polling place refused to remain open, preventing the couple from voting.
The Hazleton man expressed his outrage in a video that was aired during the hearing and submitted as evidence.
In another video shown during the hearing, Kim Buerger, of Hunlock Township, said she waited to vote until later in the evening because she was informed her polling place was out of paper for the ballot marking devices and also had no more paper provisional and emergency ballots. She said she went to the polling place around 6- to 6:30 p.m., assuming paper would be replenished by then. Instead, she was handed a copy of a provisional ballot after she signed in. She sat at a table with others and voted on the copy, and the poll worker put it on top of a visible stack of others, she said.
Buerger said she recently researched her voting record and saw no record that her ballot was accepted.
“I’m very discouraged about our election here in Luzerne County, and I am thankful you are looking into this matter,” Buerger said.
Hundreds of votes that had been cast on copied ballots were ultimately accepted after the general, once the selections were transposed onto official ballots by a bipartisan team in public during the election board’s adjudication. Buerger’s ballot may have been among them, but that couldn’t be verified Tuesday evening.
Morelle unsuccessfully challenged the submission of videos as testimony, saying arrangements should have been made to swear in the subjects as witnesses, remotely if necessary, so they could be questioned by the committee.
U.S. Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, R-Virginia, asked questions about whether county government representatives should be subpoenaed to testify.
Another committee member, U.S. Rep. Gregory F. Murphy, R-North Carolina, said everyone on the committee wants fair elections and described the paper shortage in Luzerne County as “just flat out abysmal.” Murphy said it’s not a political party issue.
While county council has a Republican majority, Bognet pointed out Beth Gilbert, who was acting election director in the general election, had been a registered Democrat when she was hired. He also noted the five-citizen election board has three Democrats and two Republicans.
Witness statements are posted on the Congressional online hearing site. A video of the hearing is posted on YouTube.
Local U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Dallas, does not serve on the Congressional committee but was invited to participate because his district includes Luzerne County.
Meuser said the primary election is in less than 60 days, and there are still no answers about the paper problem. A Congressional hearing likely would be unnecessary if county officials had publicly taken responsibility for the paper shortage and presented a plan on how it will be prevented from occurring again, he said.
Government advisories had been issued warning counties across the country about the need to order required-stock paper in a timely manner due to supply chain issues, and he said those warnings had been “utterly ignored” in Luzerne County.
Meuser said many people were remotely viewing the hearing, and he believes the information presented will make a difference. He likened the paper situation to a Super Bowl without footballs.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.