Much of Thursday’s Luzerne County Election Inquiry Committee meeting was spent critiquing the Nov. 3 general election, with mixed reviews.
Nobody, including county Election Director Shelby Watchilla, disputed that there is room for improvement.
But after Republican Council members Stephen J. Urban and Harry Haas repeated a series of complaints about the general and discouraged the election board’s certification of results by Monday’s state deadline, Democratic Councilwoman Sheila Saidman pointed out it was an “incredible election” with high turnout and the popularity of voting by mail.
“Were there problems in prior elections?” Saidman asked Watchilla, who replied yes.
“And no one every really made such a big deal about it until now,” Saidman said during the virtual session.
Watchilla also agreed with that statement. She told the committee 0.02% of county voters who cast ballots submitted formal complaints with the state about the conduct of the county’s election, and most involved frustration about long waits to vote and inquiries about why a mail ballot did not arrive.
“I think that’s a pretty successful election considering it was new machines, a pandemic and a presidential, so I’m very proud of our staff and everyone that helped with this election,” Watchilla said.
Saidman said she believes Watchilla did an “outstanding job” based on her feedback from voters and said poll workers she knows told her “there were always issues” in county elections.
Among the problems cited this time were delayed openings of some polling places, issues with a few poll books, voters leaving polls without inserting their printed ballots into tabulators to be counted and poll worker confusion about the procedure to spoil or void mail ballots turned in by voters who wanted to cast ballots on the electronic system.
County assistant solicitor Michael Butera, who has been involved in county elections more than 50 years and worked as county election legal counsel since 2012, told the committee there were problems and mistakes in every election.
Many thought 2016 was the “election from hell” and one-of-a-kind because it was so contentious, including some experienced temporary election workers who chose not to return as a result, forcing the county to rely on less seasoned helpers in the general, he said.
“My opinion on why it’s getting worse and worse and worse is because of social media. People are putting things out there that are not true, and it’s creating chaos and creating questions that should not be out there because they’re not true,” Butera said.
He asserted this year’s election was “10 times worse” because of the pandemic and other dynamics and said the mounting pressure has prompted numerous county election directors in the state to resign this year.
Butera also highlighted that there were no challenges to the county’s primary or general election results, which is unusual.
“To say that this election is a disaster is ridiculous,” Butera said.
Speaking during public comment at the end of the two-hour session, Wilkes-Barre resident Bob Caruso, who has been monitoring elections for decades, said he was physically present throughout the election process at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre to view the on-demand voting, dropping off of mail ballots and canvassing of mail ballots.
Enthusiastically praising Watchilla, Caruso said the “system worked” and that ballots were properly counted. He cited positive critiques of the county’s election process from a Yale law professor and others and said committee members should have personally observed the entire process as he did.
He also accused the committee of serving as a platform to damage Watchilla.
Democratic Councilwoman Linda McClosky Houck, who chairs the four-member committee, said the group is examining all aspects of county elections.
“It is not a target. It is not an inquisition, and we intend to keep it that way,” McClosky Houck said.
Council formed the committee largely due to the September discovery that a temporary seasonal worker had discarded nine overseas military ballots. Federal investigators found no issues beyond the nine that had been discarded during the three-day period the temporary worker was employed, and the matter remains under federal investigation, officials said. The county was ultimately able to count all nine votes.
Watchilla told the committee the overseas military ballots don’t arrive in uniform, standard envelopes like general mail ballots, which means staffers sometimes have no way of knowing a ballot is inside. Temporary workers are trained and assigned specific tasks based on their skill level, she said.