Luzerne County verifies registration of 24 flagged voters, finds additional ballots

In the final leg of a challenge hearing Wednesday, Luzerne County’s Election Board ended up accepting provisional ballots from 24 voters deemed properly registered.

Nov. 5 general election provisional ballots from the 24 were initially rejected because they were categorized as not registered.

Separate from the 24, several others in this category were identified as properly registered Wednesday, but their ballots ultimately were rejected by the board due to missing outer envelope voter signatures or inner secrecy envelopes.

Two more were identified as registered by the election bureau, but the board was tied 2-2 on whether they could be accepted based on the information available, with fifth board member Rick Morelli absent.

The board’s two-day hearing at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre wrapped up Wednesday afternoon and was necessary to consider challenges that were filed by attorneys representing the campaigns of U.S. Senate candidates Robert P. Casey Jr. and Dave McCormick. The candidates are currently 16,573 votes apart, with McCormick in the lead, according to the latest unofficial statewide results posted Tuesday.

Paper provisional ballots are cast at polling places on Election Day and must be reviewed last by the board to verify the voters are properly registered and did not also cast a mail ballot.

After Casey’s campaign challenged 600 voters in the unregistered category, the board asked the bureau to perform additional research of the entire group in the state’s voter registration system.

The bureau verified hundreds were not eligible to vote for reasons that included not registering, registering after the deadline, registering in another county, a mismatch of their social security number and a missing signature on their application.

Representing Casey’s campaign, Attorney Neil O’Donnell had questioned Tuesday what the county was doing to further research the unregistered list because he had 47 names of voters the campaign had identified as registered, supplemented with others from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania.

Attorney Greg McIntosh, of Kleinbard LLC, who is representing McCormick’s campaign, also furnished a list of 20 for further research.

Bureau representatives said there were multiple reasons the registrations were not initially detected in the state’s voter database. For example, incorrect birthdates, spellings and name variations — stemming from voter submissions or data entry — can throw off a search. In one case, an applicant entered his first and last names in the wrong application boxes, reversing his name in the system.

Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams said Wednesday she agreed with O’Donnell that the situation gave her “great pause.”

“My concern is that if this hearing hadn’t happened, those registrations would not be changed and accepted,” Williams said.

Williams said the board relies on the election bureau to perform research and due diligence before the board votes on whether to accept or reject ballots. Going forward, Williams said she recommends the election director perform a final verification check before ballots are presented to the board.

Both campaigns will have the right to appeal the board’s provisional ballot decisions to the county Court of Common Pleas within two days, said county Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino.

The main objection from the McCormick campaign involved the board’s acceptance of approximately 20 ballots missing judge of election signatures on the outer envelope.

In addition to voter registration issues, Casey’s campaign contested the board’s rejection of ballots missing outer envelope voter signatures and inner secrecy envelopes.

O’Donnell and McIntosh said they will be consulting with their respective campaigns to determine whether appeals will be filed.

Ballots discovered

During a mandatory recount in the U.S. Senate race that commenced Wednesday afternoon, workers discovered two batches of provisional ballots that had not been removed from judge of election bags.

Sixty of these provisional ballots were from Plymouth Township, and the other 14 were from Dorrance Township.

The board will process these ballots during its still-ongoing adjudication, Molino said.

As with the other provisional ballots, candidates will have an opportunity to challenge the board’s determinations on accepting and rejecting these ballots, he said.

The board is preparing to certify the election results on Monday, with no time announced.

Tally update

The county’s latest unofficial tally indicates 156,887 Nov. 5 general election ballots have been cast to date.

That means 4,554 additional ballots have been accepted during the board’s post-election adjudication so far because the total ballots cast was 152,333 at the time of the initial posting early Nov. 6.

The bureau will continue updating results at luzernecounty.org.

This current tally does not include processing of contested provisional ballots because they must remain segregated until adjudication options are exhausted, Molino said.

With the latest tally, voter turnout is 74.81% of the county’s 209,718 registered voters.

The county has surpassed the 2020 presidential election turnout of 69.76%, when 154,134 of the county’s 220,963 registered voters cast ballots, archives show.

The other presidential turnouts based on total registrations at those times: 2016, 66.99% (137,549 votes cast); 2012, 65.07% (126,326 votes cast); and 2008, 73.51% (138,076 votes cast).