Participating in Luzerne County’s continued review of June 2 primary election ballots at the Penn Place building in Wilkes-Barre Monday were, from the left rear: Election Board members Joyce Dombroski-Gebhardt, Keith Gould and Peter Ouellette and Election Bureau Deputy Mary Beth Steininger. Board member Audrey Serniak also joined remotely.
Jennifer Learn-Andes | Times Leader
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Two weeks after Luzerne County’s June 2 primary, the county Election Board still has thousands of ballots to individually review.
“We’re slogging through,” board member Joyce Dombroski-Gebhardt said, her eyes glued to a large screen showing each ballot that must be examined inside the county Penn Place building in downtown Wilkes-Barre.
“That’s the word,” said board Vice Chairman Peter Ouellette, who has used “slogging” often the past few days.
After reviewing more than 2,800 provisional and flagged mail-in ballots to determine if they would be accepted or rejected, the board is now concentrating on nearly 5,500 mail-in and provisional ballots that contain write-in votes or discrepancies, such as the selection of more than the allowed number of candidates.
Write-in votes are taking longer to process because the lion’s share of voters cast ballots on paper with the popularity of mail-in voting and the county’s inability to allow non-disabled voters to use the electronic ballot marking devices due to the coronavirus pandemic, said county Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik.
For example, the ballot marking devices require voters to type write-in names on the screen so printouts of everyone selected can be generated on a tape, Parsnik said.
Board members currently reviewing the write-ins must now decipher the handwriting, occasionally zooming in to get a closer look and debating the intended spelling.
After reviewing ballots daily last week, including Saturday, the board resumed at 8:15 a.m. Monday with 3,430 left to go.
By 6 p.m., there were 2,600 remaining, Ouellette said.
Board members planned to continue through 9 p.m. Monday and hold another marathon session Tuesday, with the goal of wrapping up by Thursday, he said.
The board plans to certify the primary results on June 22 and hold a virtual public board meeting on June 24.
On the large screen at Penn Place Monday, write-in votes and other ballot issues requiring board attention were framed in red.
Using a computer mouse, Ouellette had to specify a resolution for each red box before hitting confirm, which immediately makes the next one pop up on the screen.
The process was slowed by voters who write in joke names, including some shading the write-in oval and then writing “none” or “nobody.”
Board members must click through all these to continue.
Every new write-in name must be manually entered for the first time, placing it in a speedier drop-down menu option that can be selected for any subsequent votes under that name.
Some mail-in and provisional voters selected more than the specified number of candidates — known as over-voting, Ouellette said. In comparison, the electronic ballot marking devices won’t permit too many selections, officials said.
On one ballot that appeared on the screen Monday, someone picked all six Democratic contenders for auditor general instead of one. No selection in that race could be logged for that voter because there was no way to determine voter intent.
In another example, a voter left a tiny dot inside the first oval in a multiple-candidate race, completely filled in the second oval and left the others blank. The board concluded the voter positioned the pen in the first oval to review the names, leaving the dot, and then picked the second.
A final tally of write-in votes will be available when the counting is complete, including the winners of many Republican committee seats that had no candidates appearing on the ballot, officials said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.