Luzerne County Election Inquiry Committee focuses on dead voters

As part of its concluding review of voting procedures Thursday, Luzerne County Council’s Election Inquiry Committee touched on what happens when mail ballot voters die before Election Day.

Committee member Stephen J. Urban highlighted the issue earlier this week in an email to fellow county council members, saying he spent several hours reviewing obituaries from Oct. 6 through the general election date of Nov. 3 and matching the names to a list of county mail voters.

Urban said he found 23, excluding another one who died on Nov. 3.

“God rest their souls, but the deceased do vote and count in Luzerne County,” Urban wrote.

He compiled a spreadsheet of his findings and asserted these ballots should have been rejected.

County Assistant Solicitor Paula Radick issued a legal opinion on the matter Thursday on behalf of the county law office.

The county election bureau purges registration records based on notice from the state Department of Health that the elector “is in fact deceased,” Radick said.

When the health department receives a death notice of anyone 18 and older, it must send notification to the applicable county election office within 60 days and include the deceased person’s address so the county can promptly update its registration records.

A county may also use newspaper obituaries and estate documents from the register of wills to cancel and remove registrations, she said.

However, the county Election Board and election bureau were not in a position to investigate the death of electors in the county “solely through the use of obituaries” prior to canvassing the mail ballots without notice from the Department of Health, she said.

“Although, obituaries can be used for assistance in that process, they should not be solely used to determine that an elector is in fact deceased and should be purged from the voter registration list,” she wrote.

She pointed to October litigation that addressed this issue in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania filed by the Public Interest Legal Fund against Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar. U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones concluded that obituaries can be used for assistance in the process but should not be solely used to determine a voter is deceased and warrants purging from the voter list, she said.

Radick also noted that nobody alerted the Election Board or Election Bureau during canvassing that any of the electors who cast mail ballots were deceased prior to election day.

The county Election Inquiry Committee ended up issuing a finding that ballots cast by voters who were deceased on or before Election Day were counted. It recommended the county establish and follow a procedure for verifying the life status of mail voters before their ballots are processed.

During Thursday’s virtual session, Committee Chairwoman Linda McClosky Houck said she will present a proposed final version of the committee’s findings and recommendations to the committee to determine if it wants to meet again before they are presented to the full 11-member council on Feb. 9.

Council members Sheila Saidman and Harry Haas also serve on the commission, which has been meeting since October.

Its recommendations include written documentation of basic election procedures and daily operation practices and establishment of a clear process for reporting and processing election-related complaints.

A better system also is needed to recruit and train poll workers and ensure they can communicate with the election bureau staff on Election Day, the draft report said.

County Manager C. David Pedri said he will publicly re-advertise the county’s vacant election director position after the inquiry committee releases its report in case it impacts the job requirements. He appointed veteran election bureau employee Andrea Hill as interim election director.