Luzerne County election director to face inquiry committee

Luzerne County Election Director Shelby Watchilla said she looks forward to answering questions from county council’s Election Inquiry Committee at its meeting this evening.

“I’m here to work with the committee. We’re all in this to make our election bureau one of the top in the state, one that sets the standard,” Watchilla said Wednesday.

Council set up the committee to review election protocols, procedures and staffing and come up with findings and recommendations. So far, a myriad of concerns have been raised, many centering on poll worker staffing and training.

According to Watchilla:

The county had approximately 1,080 poll workers signed up to work in the Nov. 3 general election, which would have been sufficient for the number of locations and machines if they all showed up.

Some — the exact number was still being tallied — called off at the last minute or failed to appear, which is something that occurs in every election and may have been exacerbated this time due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The bureau sought replacements and was able to train some of them the day before the election.

A solution could be training and paying extra workers to be on standby in case they are needed if that is permissible under state regulations. However, the county also would have to be willing to fund this added expense. The county received additional funding due to the pandemic to help cover added staffing this year, but that’s not a recurring revenue stream.

Watchilla said her office tried to reach out to all poll workers who had expressed an interest. In some cases, those who had signed up were only interested in working part of the day.

On training, Watchilla said she does not believe there is a state mandate forcing poll workers to undergo training. In many cases, poll workers had signed up for training but did not attend, wasting seats in classes that had to be limited to 23 plus two trainers due to coronavirus crowd limitations, she said.

Watchilla and county Deputy Election Director Dino Ninotti said they are confident sufficient training was offered on both the voting system and the poll books, and workers were encouraged to reach out to the bureau if they were unsure about something or wanted clarification.

Ninotti said he had one new judge of election voluntarily attend the training three times because he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything. A few others attended twice.

Poll workers also received $20 to attend the training and quick start guides for the ballot marking devices, scanner/tabulators and poll books.

The judges of election also were provided contact information for the representative of the building housing their polling place and were encouraged to set up their tables and materials the weekend or night before, Ninotti said. He added that he responded to some requests for assistance arranging the equipment for better flow inside some of the new polling places the days before the election.

Under state law, the voting machines and poll books cannot be unsealed until the morning of the election for security reasons, Watchilla said.

Her response to some other questions that came up during inquiry committee meetings:

• Was equipment checked in advance to make sure it functioned properly?

Companies supplying both the voting system and electronic poll books programmed, checked and tested the equipment. The testing of the ballot marking devices and tabulators was open to the public and advertised.

• Will the county consider signs delineating separate lines for voting precincts that share the same polling location and to remind voters to feed their ballots into tabulators?

Watchilla said she will embrace any signs or steps to assist voters. However, Watchilla said the bureau, election board and other county officials have repeatedly stressed in media coverage, at a multi-day voting machine demonstration and in other communications that voters must feed their ballots into tabulators to be counted.

• How can the county better prepare for problems so polls can open at 7 a.m. as required?

Rovers were deployed at 6 a.m., and additional phone lines were opened to field pre-opening calls. The problem is that many inundate the bureau with calls at the same time.

• What can be done to make sure voters know where to cast their ballots?

A card was sent to all voters who had location changes, and the county heavily advertised and publicly posted the polling places — measures that will continue in future elections.

• Can anything be done about the awkward location of the printer that spits out the ballots, which made unassisted retrieval difficult for voters with disabilities?

The bureau is working with the vendor to see if the printer placement can be altered.

• Were judges of election trained on the proper procedure to spoil ballots?

They were trained on the new process, but Watchilla agreed it should be covered again at length in trainings for future elections.

The inquiry committee meeting is virtual and starts at 4:30 p.m. A link to attend is posted under council’s public meetings online link at luzernecounty.org.