After bi-partisan Luzerne County Election Board review, board Vice Chairman Peter Ouellette stamps a provisional ballot as voided Monday as board Chairwoman Jeanette Tait watches. The board marked it void because the ballot in a green secrecy envelope was not inserted in an outer envelope as required, although the Republican party is arguing these ballots should still be counted.
Jennifer Learn-Andes | Times Leader
Missing outer envelopes source of controversy
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Luzerne County officials had stressed leading up to the Nov. 3 general election that provisional ballots must be inside both a secrecy envelope and then an outer envelope containing the voter’s signature in order to be counted.
However, Republicans plan to contest the county Election Board’s decision Monday to reject ballots that did not meet those conditions.
Approximately 90 provisional ballots reviewed by the board so far were in green secrecy envelopes but not outer envelopes.
The first group of a dozen green envelopes were in Conyngham.
Board members were optimistic it was a fluke but then opened a Butler Township polling place packet to find 30 more without the outer envelopes.
There was another in Foster Township, six in Black Creek Township and a combined 43 without outer envelopes in two Kingston polling locations.
But many other polling places had all provisional ballots inside outer envelopes.
“This really hurts. We hate doing this,” said county Election Board Vice Chairman Peter Ouellette as he marked them with a void stamper while his fellow board members nodded in agreement.
“We will challenge every one of those,” said county Republican Chairman Justin Behrens.
Republicans plan to argue it is not voters’ fault if they were not instructed to use outer envelopes at their polling places.
County assistant solicitor Michael Butera said the board cannot accept these provisional ballots because the outer envelopes contain the voter’s name, which is needed to verify the voter is registered and did not already cast another ballot by mail.
Provisional ballots are marked by hand and reviewed last so the county can verify a mail ballot was not also received from that voter.
“Without an outer envelope, there is no way to check that these votes are valid,” Butera said.
One Republican observer at Monday’s review said he received reports that some precincts ran out of provisional ballot outer envelopes, theorizing that is why some were missing.
County Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik disputed this claim, saying election workers repeatedly delivered batches to polling places throughout the county on Election Day if they were getting low. Parsnik also said the argument does not make sense because polling places received the same number of ballots, secrecy and outer envelopes, preventing the possibility for only one of the three to run short.
Republicans also plan to seek tabulation of provisional ballots missing a voter signature on the outer envelope, Ouellette said. There were about 30 to 40 of those so far, he said.
Butera said voter signatures are required for both provisional and mail ballots.
In addition, Republicans want the board to count so-called “naked” provisional ballots that were in outer envelopes but not the secrecy ones. The number of those found to date was unclear.
The board will have an opportunity to decide how it wants to proceed in response to any complaints, Butera said. The party complaining also will have the right to contest or appeal the board’s decision in court, he said.
Ouellette reiterated after Monday’s review that the board strives to tally all ballots as permitted by law.
“We don’t like not counting ballots,” he said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.