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Posted on 05/19/2021 2:50:07 PM PDT by lightman
York County commissioners cited a few factors contributing to ballot shortages at several of the county’s polling places in Tuesday’s primary election.
They pointed to high voter turnout, especially among Republicans. Some voters surrendered their mail-in ballot to vote in-person on Tuesday. County officials said Wednesday they intend to take a deep dive to find what led to the shortage that left voters standing in lines waiting for more ballots to arrive.
But as York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler said, “What happened yesterday was unacceptable and we need to put measures in place to fix it.”
York County wasn’t the only county in Pennsylvania that encountered ballot shortages and other problems in administering the election.
Lancaster County reported a printing error that made 15,000 ballots unable to be scanned. That forced a bipartisan team of election officials and observers to transfer the candidate selections on those ballots to new ballots so they could be scanned.
Another 2,700 mailed ballots in that county failed to include instructions about putting postage on return envelopes, while voters in Mount Joy and Marietta received mail ballots with someone else’s name on the return envelope.
Some ballots in Fayette County lacked the barcode that enabled them to be scanned so they had to counted by hand. Luzerne County had an electronic ballot for Republican voters that had a Democratic screen header on it, even though the correct slate of GOP candidates was listed on the ballot.
Officials in other counties, including Dauphin and Perry counties, said their elections went smoothly and were not plagued by the problems other counties experienced.
But the isolated voting issues across the commonwealth angered House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre County, and House State Government Committee Chairman Seth Grove, R-York County.
The lawmakers said they were more determined than ever to make the election system better for voters and those running it.
“It is crystal clear that our Election Code is in dire need of significant reform focused on accountability, security, and training,” the lawmakers said in a statement issued on Tuesday evening. “This is why we will be advancing election reform measures in the coming weeks. Pennsylvanians deserve to show up to their polling place trusting in the election process. They deserve the ability to leave their polling place knowing that their vote was cast accurately.”
Both chambers of the Legislature have held hearings focused on election reform following the multitude of issues that arose out of the 2020 election cycle that Republicans say eroded voter confidence in the integrity of the state’s elections. Addressing those issues is a top priority for the GOP in both chambers.
Some Democratic lawmakers have argued allowing county officials to pre-canvass mail-in ballots would help election officials as more people vote by mail. Democrats are also concerned that Republicans will be pushing legislation that will make it harder for people to vote, including measures aimed at minority groups.
In York County, more Republicans turned out to vote than the total number of voters who cast ballots in the 2019 primary, Wheeler said. She attributed the strong voter interest to the four statewide ballot questions as well as the special election to fill the open 48th state Senatorial District seat.
While not able to share specific numbers on how many ballots polling places were short, Wheeler said the county followed the state law that requires them to have enough ballots on hand as the highest number of voters in the last three municipal primary elections held in odd-numbered years, plus 10%.
“We’re working with the elections department right now to verify exactly what was ordered,” she said. “We plan based on the statute and what the guidance was given. That’s not to say planning couldn’t have been better. We certainly know we had an issue yesterday.”
She was unable to say how many polling places ran out of ballots as early as 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday. But Wheeler and the other two commissioners said none of them had received a phone call or email from anyone claiming they were unable to vote or went home from the polls without voting.
Commissioner Doug Hoke shared at the polling places he visited he saw an enthusiastic response from voters who were happy the ballots arrived so they could vote.
Other potential causes that the commissioners mentioned as contributing to the ballot shortage were voters who messed up completing their ballot at the polling place and requested a new one, as well as a high number of voters who surrendered mail-in ballots to vote in-person.
In one small precinct, Commissioner Ron Smith said 96 people who were sent mail-in ballots showed up at the polls to vote.
“So how do you anticipate moving forward to compensate for that in any formula,” Smith said. “Those are the things that we’re going to struggle to have to figure out.”
On a positive note, Wheeler highlighted improvements made to the election system to address problems that arose in the November general election that were overshadowed by the ballot shortage.
After hearing of long lines at Springfield, Hopewell and East Manchester townships during the general election, they split up the poll books to allow voters to move through the check-in more efficiently. In another improvement, the county’s election website was improved to make it more user-friendly.
Just as they responded to those issues, Wheeler said the county will look at what the root causes of the ballot shortage were “and make sure we’ve got mechanisms in place so that this doesn’t happen. Certainly we know we’re going to need to print more ballots.”
So Yorkers were thrown a curve ball...
You can be assured that heads were rolling after this fiasco .... not.
Well, if vow to better next time……
Well, we’re in Allegheny County, democrap stronghold for at least 70 years (and I have no idea why since steel is gone).
We went to vote about 10:30 am.
The sign-in person was ecstatic, she said to the woman next to her “we got a Republican!”
We filled out our vote sheets. They fed them into the machine.
I asked “how do we know what the machine actually registered?” Were told, “don’t worry, it will be counted right at the end of the day.”
100% unsatisfying!
But I understand the two amendments were defeated - a loss for Gov Wolf.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
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The two amendments passed, A win for American values, and a deep loos for your communist governor.
I’ve got some friends in York County. Yea, they ran out of ballots in 1pm.
Bull.
They purposely didn’t print enough.
Local rumor locally the day-after has it that the guy they hired is a “yellow dog democrat”. That might explain why it was mostly R ballots that were in short supply. Our brilliant County Commishes also granted the clod absolute dictatorial power, so that he took advice, guidance or direction from NOBODY.
Eliminate the voter fraud and there would be no shortage.
No shortages at N. Sherman St Fire Hall, but one machine kept rejecting all ballots, so they took it offline and shut it down.
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