State delay prompts late mailing of 300 Luzerne County mail ballots for 116th special election

Luzerne County’s Election Board will be seeking court approval to accept 300 mail ballots after Tuesday’s special election for state representative in the 116th Legislative District due to a Pennsylvania Department of State technical issue, officials said.

Three candidates are competing for the seat, according to the election bureau: Democrat Amilcar Arroyo, Republican Robert Schnee and Libertarian Paul Cwalina.

The winner will serve through this year, filling a term vacated by Tarah Toohil now that she is a county judge.

According to a release from county Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams issued Friday evening:

The county election bureau discovered two files containing a total 300 voters’ mail ballot information were not correctly uploaded by the state so they could be sent to the mail ballot vendor for processing and mailing to voters.

Once the problem was discovered, files were immediately uploaded and sent to the vendor so they could be processed and sent to the voters.

“This oversight by the Department of State created a significant delay with these voters receiving their mail-in ballots, receiving them with only a few days left until the 116th Legislative District special election day,” it said.

The five-citizen, volunteer election board will petition the county Court of Common Pleas to grant an extension of the deadline for receiving these voters’ returned mail ballots through April 11.

To be accepted, these mail ballots would have to be postmarked no later than April 4, or the day before the special election. This extension will only be requested for the 300 voters impacted by this issue. These ballots will be segregated until the court issues a decision.

Impacted voters also have the option to:

• Bring all mail ballot paperwork to their polling place on Election Day Tuesday so it can be “spoiled” by the judge of elections, allowing the voter to cast a ballot on the electronic voting machines.

• Inform workers at their polling place on Election Day if they did not receive their mail ballot, which means they will be permitted to vote on a provisional ballot at the polling place.

Paper provisional ballots are marked by hand and reviewed last so the county can verify a mail ballot was not also received from that voter. The details are important for provisional ballots. They must be placed in a secrecy envelope, which is then inserted in an outer envelope. Three signatures — two from the voter and one from the judge of elections — are required on the outer envelope for the vote to count.

• Deposit the completed mail ballot at the drop box inside Hazleton City Hall, 40 N. Church St., on Monday before 4 p.m.

• Bring the completed mail ballot to the lobby drop box or election bureau in the county’s Penn Place Building, 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, before on Election Day Tuesday before 8 p.m.

According to an email Williams sent to the state Thursday, the matter came to light after she was contacted by a voter who had not received his mail ballot.

Election Director Michael Susek informed the board Monday that he discovered the state had not uploaded the impacted ballots and immediately resolved the situation with the state so the ballots could be sent to voters.