Luzerne County mail ballots rejected because of voter date errors

In what has now become a post-election routine, Luzerne County’s Election Board was forced to reject 108 Nov. 5 general election mail ballots solely because the voters did not fill in the outer envelope date as specified in state law.

When the matter came up during Friday’s board adjudication, Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams questioned the need for a date, saying the election bureau time-stamped the ballots when they were received and did not accept ballots that arrived after the 8 p.m. Election Day deadline.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Williams said.

Election Board member Rick Morelli said the date issue should be added to a list he wants the board to compile of matters warranting review by state legislators. A list approved by the bipartisan board could carry more weight in convincing legislators to revise state election law, he said.

“This is something the state needs to look at,” Morelli said, describing the date requirement as unnecessary and unfair.

Board Vice Chairwoman Alyssa Fusaro said she understands arguments on both sides. For example, she said it’s customary for a contract to be signed and dated. However, ballots are time-stamped and must be received by a deadline to be counted, she said.

“It is a shame,” Fusaro said of the rejection of those ballots.

County Manager Romilda Crocamo had announced last week the administration is forming an “Election Legislation Task Force” to advocate for election law revisions, saying state legislative action is the “only way to enact meaningful improvements to our election system.” The responsibility to interpret and enforce “cannot solely rest on the counties, the Department of State and the courts,” she had said.

On the issue of mail ballot dates, Attorney Cathy O’Donnell verified with the board that the 108 rejected ballots would remain segregated, citing conflicting court rulings and a pending legal action on that matter. O’Donnell was representing the campaign of U.S. Sen. Bob Casey at adjudication.

As it stands, county Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino said multiple court opinions are “crystal clear” that the date requirement must be followed.

“As we sit here today, the law is clear, and my advice is these must be rejected,” Molino said.

Attempting to prompt voters to remember to enter the date and fulfill other requirements, the Department of State redesigned mail ballots and instructions, including a requirement for counties to pre-print the full year on the date line.

Fusaro noted some of the 108 voters may have received notice of the missing date before Nov. 5 and opted to remedy the situation by casting a paper provisional ballot at their polling place on Election Day.

The board has learned 2,803 county voters cast provisional ballots on Nov. 5, Williams said. Provisional ballots must be reviewed last during adjudication to verify everything is in order and that no mail ballot was cast by these voters.

In another date-related issue, the board had to reject approximately 80 more ballots Friday because the date was “out of range,” or not between Oct. 4 — the date ballots were prepared — and the Nov. 5 return deadline.

There also were 85 “naked ballots” not placed inside the secrecy envelopes that had to be rejected by the board. The state tried to prevent this by making the inner secrecy envelopes yellow to distinguish them from the outer return ones.

Ten mail ballots were rejected because voters didn’t place them in the outer return envelope.

Approximately 87 could not be counted because voters didn’t sign the outer envelope.

During public comment at the opening of adjudication, several voters voiced concerns about problems they encountered, including complaints about a lack of customer service and issues with data not updated to show the status of mail ballot processing in the state’s online tracker.

Approximately 7,000 mail ballots in the 119th Legislative District had to be reissued because incumbent state Rep. Alec Ryncavage’s name was misspelled. The vendor accepted responsibility for that error. There also was an issue with original ballots that were supposed to stay segregated by the bureau but did not. Election Day mail ballot processing was halted, so the original ballots were extracted and not tallied in the unofficial results.

Ryncavage was highly critical of this situation during public comment on Friday.

Segregated ballots from the 119th District will be addressed separately during adjudication, which resumes at 9 a.m. Monday at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre and will continue daily as needed.

Morelli said many aspects of the high turnout election were successful, but the board agrees problems must be examined.

“Nobody is ignoring these issues,” he said.

Fusaro agreed the county was “lacking in customer service responsiveness.”

Toward the end of Friday’s session, Wilkes-Barre resident Bob Caruso, who has been actively monitoring county elections for decades, commended the board on its structured plan to methodically review the mail ballots Friday.

“This has been the smoothest adjudication day we ever had,” Caruso said.