Free Republic

A county in Pennsylvania that didn’t have enough paper ballots on Election Day failed to certify the results of the Nov. 8 midterms by the Nov. 28 deadline.The Luzerne County Board of Elections split 2–2 to certify the results, while one member abstained from voting. It’s unclear what the next steps are.Republican board members Alyssa Fusaro and Jim Mangan voted no, while Democrat members Denise Williams and Audrey Serniak voted for the certification, according to the Times Leader. Daniel Schramm, also a Democrat, was the lone board member who abstained.Fusaro and Mangan said the ballot shortage on Nov. 8 that...

U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) on Tuesday sued the board of elections of a Pennsylvania county that didn’t have enough paper ballots on Election Day for failing to certify his victory by the Nov. 28 deadline. Cartwright was named the winner on Nov. 9, over Trump-endorsed business owner Jim Bognet, a Republican, in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District. The Luzerne County Board of Elections was left deadlocked on Nov. 28 after two Republican board members voted not to certify, two Democrat board members voted to certify, and one Democrat board member abstained from voting, splitting the results. Cartwright’s lawsuit is requesting...

Election officials in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, reported issues with voting equipment at polling places on Tuesday, prompting a response from Dominion Voting Systems saying that there was a ballot screen error regarding the viewing screen’s header.Dominion Voting Systems told The Epoch Times that “Luzerne County’s election director has confirmed that there is a ballot screen error that is confined to the header on the viewing screen of the machine, and that all ballots are printing correctly with the Republican header and the Republican primary election races.”The firm then noted that Luzerne County officials have assured the public that “all ballots...

Officials in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, have unanimously approved the district attorney to investigate the recent primary election after on-screen ballots mislabeled Republican ballots as Democrat candidates. (The Times Leader) – […] Dominion Voting Systems Inc., which supplied and programs the devices, said “human error” at the company caused the data entry typographical mistake that put a Democratic header at the top of Republican ballots. The county administration also acknowledged the county did not test the ballots after they were programmed into the machines, relying on the company to do that task....

Dominion Voting Systems has blamed "human error" on the bombshell discovery that its machines were failing to display Republican ballots in a Pennsylvania county. The executive vice president of operations at Dominion, Nicole Nollette, concluded the reasons in a special meeting held by the Luzerne County volunteer election board, the Times Leader reported.

Feb. 26—Carbon County commissioners aren't keen on a plan to toll bridges along Interstate 80 to fund construction projects. Commissioner Chris Lukasevich on Thursday said Pennsylvania residents already pay the highest gas tax in the United States, and feels that state should better use existing funds. Commissioners Wayne Nothstein and Rocky Ahner also question the move, which would allow tolls on the Interstate 80 bridges over the Lehigh River at the Carbon-Luzerne county line for up to 30 years. Ahner worried about the average commuter, who has to pay the toll each way to go to work every day. "It...

Two more batches of Pennsylvania vote were reported: -23,277 votes in Philadelphia, all for Biden -about 5,300 votes in Luzerne County, nearly 4,000 of which were for Biden *With 83% of the expected vote in, Trump’s lead in PA is now just below 6 points.

The County Election Board for Luzerne County, Pennsylvania has filed a motion today with the Supreme Court for Justice Barrett to be recused from participating in the case. The basis of the motion is one that has been written and talked about by pundits over the last two weeks — whether President Trump’s nomination of Judge Barrett and public statements of support which mentioned pending election law cases have created a circumstance where a prior decision of the Supreme Court, Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., which has never been overruled, would find a “due process” violation in the rights...

Trump Road Rally Dallas High School 10/24 Join fellow Trump Supporters on Saturday, 10/24 at 12:00pm to show Sleepy Joe that Luzerne County is TRUMP COUNTRY!!! We will be meeting in the Country Club Shopping Center. We will have a DJ, FREE hamburgers and hot dogs, FREE Trump Yard Signs, and FREE Trump Flags!!! RSVP below https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc2OmVhvX3bY2iu5do3_wuMfp0g7AMuzrsc1TtVIjC_RtgX-A/viewform

The Department of Justice directed the Pennsylvania county where discarded ballots were found to change its practices before the upcoming election. U.S. Attorney David Freed said in a letter to Shelby Watchilla, director of elections for Luzerne County, that the nine discarded ballots all originated with members of the military. Two of the ballots had been recovered by elections staff, reinserted into what appeared to be their appropriate envelopes, and resealed. One was linked to an envelope that was recovered, potentially tying it to a specific voter. The six others were simply removed and discarded, and can’t be attributed to...

The Justice Department announced Thursday the DOJ and FBI are investigating discarded mail-in votes in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. A statement issued by U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania David Freed states that nine mail-in military ballots were discovered discarded and that all nine were for President Trump.

A state senator from Luzerne County said Tuesday he is changing his party registration from the Democratic Party to become an Independent, and will start attending caucus meeting in Harrisburg with the majority Republicans. John Yudichak said in a statement that he is leaving his old party because he is weary of “'purist' politicians who demand that you choose a battle camp. You must pass their litmus test, and declare if you support ‘us,’ or ‘them.’"

WILKES-BARRE — With the 50th anniversary of her death coming up this week, relatives of Mary Jo Kopechne are making public a letter the Luzerne County native’s parents received from boxer Muhammad Ali shortly after her passing. In it, Ali urges the family to sue Sen. Ted Kennedy, who was driving the car that plunged off a bridge into a pond on the night of July 18, 1969, from which Kennedy escaped and Kopechne’s lifeless body was recovered the next morning. She was 28. The letter has been released to the Times Leader by William Nelson and his mother, Georgetta...

A Pennsylvania county has become the example of how Trump took the nation by storm with a conservative rhetoric that reached the forgotten corners of America in the 2016 cycle. Ben Bradlee Jr., a former Boston Globe reporter who led the Pulitzer-Prize winning team featured in the movie "Spotlight," sat down with ABC’s Political Director Rick Klein this week for the Powerhouse Politics Podcast to discuss his book, “The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania Country Elected Donald Trump and Changed America.” His book takes a deep dive, through the lives of 12 characters, into how Luzerne County became...

Unlike the 5,644 Democrats in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, who changed their party registration to Republican in 2016, presumably so they could vote in the closed 2016 Republican primary, Ed Harry did not. He didn't formally leave his party at the beginning of the election -- but his eye did wander. At D's Diner, Harry dusts the crumbs from his white toast off of his deep- navy Penn State sweatshirt and switches from coffee to pop. As the young utility workers at the next table leave, he tips his hat, and they return the gesture. He says of former Democratic...

Mark Margavage said he’s had enough of “polished politics.” Margavage, an Edwardsville resident, said he believes Republican Donald Trump is a better presidential candidate than Democrat Hillary Clinton, regardless of the sexually charged comments Trump was recorded as saying about women in 2005. Margavage said many men make similar comments about women. And he’s not alone in his support for Trump. In an informal Times Leader poll Saturday on Facebook, an overwhelming majority of Trump backers said they still plan to vote for him despite his lewd comments 11 years ago. The poll had reached nearly 7,000 readers over the...

SCRANTON - At first, it was a seemingly chastened Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. who stood at a podium Thursday to address the court. The former Luzerne County judge apologized to his family, to the county bench and bar, to the juvenile probation officers who worked in his courtroom. Reading from a prepared statement, he asked the people of Luzerne County to forgive him for "violating the trust they placed in me" and told the juvenile offenders who appeared in his court that he had shown himself to be a "hypocrite by not practicing what I preached." Then Ciavarella's statement took...

A defiant Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in prison and ordered to pay $965,000 in restitution this morning after reading a statement to the court in which he denied trading "kids for cash." "Those three words made me the personification of evil. They made me the devil. They made me the anti-Christ. They made me toxic," Ciavarella told U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik. Ciavarella, 61, was taken into federal custody following the sentencing. Ciavarella, while admitting to tax charges and fraud for taking nearly $1 million from the builder of a for-profit detention center, forcefully...

WILKES-BARRE - Two Luzerne County deputy sheriffs filed requests for protection-from-abuse orders against each other Friday, and both women allege murder threats and gun-pointing incidents. Mary Jean Farrell, 50, and Jennifer M. Roberts, 33, were living together on Arthur Circle in Fairview Township with Farrell's children, 13 and 11, and broke up as a couple when Roberts became involved with another woman, the court filings say. When Farrell asked Roberts to move out Feb. 9, Roberts pointed a gun at Farrell, Farrell alleges. "Don't you dare. I have kids," Farrell alleges she told Roberts. "Then she pointed it in her...

SCRANTON – Mark Ciavarella never disclosed his financial relationship with attorney Robert Powell or developer Robert Mericle even when the men stood before him in court, witnesses said Friday in fifth day of the former Luzerne County judge’s corruption trial. Prosecutors have charged Ciavarella with 39 counts of racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering, honest services fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion. Jurors heard testimony from three attorneys who argued cases before Ciavarella that involved either Mericle or Powell during the interval in which prosecutors allege Ciavarella had a financial relationship with the men. All three lawyers said they would have...