Luzerne County mail ballot delivery protocols discussed

Luzerne County Election Board members recently expressed concern when they learned mail ballots are not directly delivered to the election bureau by the postal system.

Instead, the county has long had a mailroom at the courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre.

The county’s lone mailroom worker must go to the Wilkes-Barre post office to retrieve county government mail, bring it back to the courthouse basement to sort it and then deliver it to its intended buildings, including the Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre that houses the election bureau, officials said.

A building and grounds worker must perform these duties when the mailroom employee is off.

“I have real serious concerns about the process big time,” election board Chairwoman Denise Williams said during the most recent meeting April 27.

“I do too,” replied board member Alyssa Fusaro.

While other options will be explored for the November general election, the board voted to have teams of two sheriff deputies retrieve and deliver election mail, including ballots, to the bureau daily leading up to the May 17 primary election.

However, the sheriff’s department later informed the board it doesn’t have the staffing to take on that task.

County Acting Manager Romilda Crocamo stressed the sheriff’s department and many others are understaffed “at the breaking point” and must first focus on statutorily-required duties. Deputies must handle prisoner transport and courtroom security, among numerous other duties.

Crocamo said the sheriff’s department has always stepped up to assist as needed but has limits on stretching its manpower.

As a compromise, the building and grounds department is assigning two workers to jointly retrieve mail from the post office and deliver it to Penn Place after it is sorted while mail ballots are arriving, officials said.

Crocamo said she wholeheartedly supports procedures to safeguard elections and is willing to pull a second worker from other duties to serve as a check as requested by the board, but she stressed any building and grounds workers touching mail, including mail ballots, understand the importance of their role.

“These are hardworking public servants. They’re not political operatives,” Crocamo said.

Williams said the team directive is intended to prevent problems.

“Once the ballots leave the post office, there should be a chain of custody,” Williams said.

She said it’s a continuation of the board’s support of a policy last summer to secure collection of mail ballots from the county’s drop boxes.

Only designated sheriff deputies and employees are permitted to collect ballots from the boxes, always in teams of two. Staff members must take an oath prior to collecting.

A team member must unlock the drop box access door and remove ballots in full view of the other. The pair then records the date and time of opening on a collection form and the number of ballots retrieved on a transmittal form before the ballots are placed in a locking transfer bag for transport to the election bureau.

Both team members must sign the collection form and note the time of departure and place that form in the transfer bag, jointly locking and checking the bag and ballot box access door to ensure they are secure.

The team must transfer custody of the bag to a full-time election bureau employee, who must then call another employee to witness the bag opening and content withdrawal. The bureau worker must announce the ballot count and record the number on a site collection form after verification by the colleague.

The newly arrived ballots are then time-stamped. Once the outer envelope bar codes are scanned to log receipt from those registered voters in the state tracking system, the ballots are stored in a locked storage room that can only be accessed by a team of full-time bureau employees. This room is under round-the-clock surveillance, and tamper-proof seals are placed on the lock and door frame at the end of each business day when ballots are stored inside.

Future plans

The board discussed the possibility of having election bureau mail delivered directly to Penn Place, but Williams said she was informed a separate mail room would have to be created and staffed at that county-owned building in Wilkes-Barre to accept mail for all departments within that building.

A mailroom at Penn Place also would have to be open all year and until 6 p.m. on weekdays, rather than limiting it to the period leading up to elections, Williams said she was informed.

She wants to research a suggestion from Election Director Michael Susek to set up a post office box at the Wilkes-Barre post office to receive all ballots. He said this approach was implemented in prior counties where he worked, with a bipartisan team retrieving the ballots from the post office box daily.

It’s too late to implement a post office box for the May 17 primary because the ballots were already printed and mailed with the county address, he said.

Williams said the board would have to further discuss the mechanics of a post office box and vote on the change at a future meeting.

The county has mailed more than 19,000 ballots to county voters who requested them for the May 17 primary.

Completed mail ballots must be received in the county election bureau by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Voters can return their ballots by mail or deposit them in one of the county’s five drop boxes inside buildings. Drop box locations and hours are posted under the election bureau 2022 primary election link at luzernecounty.org.