Luzerne County Election Bureau recommends new voting system

Luzerne County’s Election Bureau has completed its review of voting system options and is recommending the leasing of a new one from Hart InterCivic.

The county’s five-citizen Election Board is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether it will support or decline this recommendation.

County Council will make the final decision on which system is used for 2026.

The administration sought reconsideration because the five-year maintenance and support contract with voting equipment supplier Dominion Voting Systems expires at the end of this year, officials said.

County Election Director Emily Cook said Tuesday the bureau is still tallying a final lease cost because prices submitted in response to the county’s public solicitation included items that won’t be needed by the county.

She also said the county would not have to come up with the full cost to lease machines because there will be savings on other expenses.

Cook is recommending having voters fill out selections on paper ballots and then feeding them into the Hart InterCivic tabulators to be tallied, which will reduce the equipment needed.

Under the current system, voters make selections on computerized touchscreen ballot marking devices, print out the ballot for review and then feed it into a tabulator.

Cook said the county must print emergency paper ballots for all voters on Election Day in case there are problems with ballot marking devices or printers at polling places.

“So for every election I’m spending all this money to program and deliver ballot marking devices and then subsequently printing emergency paper ballots that we largely end up throwing out because they are not used,” Cook said.

She advocates the county “save the step” of programming and delivering hundreds of ballot marking devices. By law, the county would still be required to set up one ballot marking device at each of the 186 voting precincts to accommodate those with disabilities.

Advocates of ballot marking devices have said the machines immediately alert voters when they attempt to pick too many candidates (overvoting) or when they have not selected all allowable choices (undervoting) in case they want to choose more. They also prevent “ambiguous marks” on ballots that could prevent acceptance of a ballot.

Cook said the Hart tabulators would be set up to clearly warn voters about all three issues when they attempt to scan in their ballots and give them the option to have them voided by a poll worker so they can fill out a new one.

Hart would assist the county in voter information sessions and providing education materials in both English and Spanish, Cook said.

Generally speaking — without factoring in off-setting savings — the cost to lease a system would be approximately $500,000 annually, with support included. Purchasing a system would cost approximately $2 million with added licensing and support costs.

“I don’t think it is in the county’s best interest to do an outright purchase of equipment that gets outdated very quickly and then having to deal with storing it in our warehouse,” Cook said.

Another option for council would be negotiating a new maintenance and support contract to continue using the Dominion system for a set number of years.

Council had approved the purchase of Dominion’s system for $3.6 million at the end of 2019 as part of a state mandate for all counties to implement systems with the paper record that can be verified by voters and kept in case tallies are questioned.

Because there is no mandate to change systems this time around, there may be little or no state and federal funding to offset costs. The purchase of a voting system is not eligible for funding through the county’s annual state election integrity grant, officials have said.

According to a report attached to Wednesday’s board agenda, the election bureau’s recommendation was “driven by the system’s user-friendly interface, which will enhance in-house management and reduce costs, the compact and efficient polling place equipment, and the robust security features that ensure the integrity of the election process.”

“By adopting this system, Luzerne County will be better positioned to meet current and future needs, becoming more self-reliant, efficient, and successful in managing elections,” it said.

The election bureau evaluated the equipment through individual interviews of all four potential vendors and at a public demonstration. In addition to Dominion and Hart, Clear Ballot Group Inc. and Election Systems and Software (ES&S) also submitted proposals to provide a new system.

Before unanimously selecting the Hart system, a team of county election bureau representatives also visited election departments in several other counties for feedback and to observe how the equipment and software function, it said.

”It is important to emphasize that our decision regarding the voting system vendor does not in any way reflect negatively on our current vendor or any of the other vendors that submitted proposals,” it said. “The recommendation of the Bureau of Elections is based on the immediate and future needs of the bureau to become more self-reliant, efficient, and successful as the elections landscape continues to evolve.”

The report cited some “critical reasons” for recommending the Hart system:

• Equipment used on Election Day is compact, durable and features a simpler interface, facilitating ease of use for poll workers and voters. The size, weight, and design simplify preparation, storage and transport.

• Poll workers and staff can confirm essential details without powering on or setting up devices. It specifically cites polling place information, the election version and last time of use displayed on equipment tags, which enhances chain-of-custody features and provides “instant audit points.”

• After reviewing samples and live demonstrations of ballot building, reporting, and adjudication modules, the bureau found Hart’s interface to be the most user-friendly. This would enable the county to manage ballot building, election programming and post-election tasks in-house, resulting in greater control and cost savings.

“The county is well-positioned to maximize its internal resources and resume all ballot building and programming. The Vanguard software minimizes the risk of human error and, in our assessment, offers the greatest ease of use,” it said.

• The post-election processes in the Vanguard system would save resources needed for write-in adjudication and time spent in the weeks leading to certification. For instance, in a county processing a similar number of write-in votes, one person processed all ballots in less than two full days, while Luzerne County required four teams of two people, with assistance from election board members, taking almost a full week.

• The security protections built into the Vanguard system are “exceptionally thorough,” and it was the first system certified under the Election Assistance Commission Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 2.0 complying with and exceeding recent changes to federal election security regulations.

Wednesday’s election board meeting is at 6 p.m. in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Instructions for the remote attendance option are posted under council’s authorities/boards/commissions online meeting section at luzernecounty.org.