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<p>Luzerne County&#8217;s Election Board unanimously voted Wednesday to recommend the purchase of a paper-trail voting system from Election Systems and Software, or ES&amp;S, which means that vendor now has support from a second source.</p><p>County Manager C. David Pedri chose a system from Dominion Voting Systems, while the selection committee of citizens and employees the manager had assembled picked the ES&amp;S one. Two of the five citizen election board members &#8212; Peter Ouellette and Anne Davies &#8212; had served on this committee.</p><p>County council is set to discuss but not vote on a system at its 6 p.m. meeting Monday, which follows a 5 p.m. public demonstration of systems from all three vendors under consideration at the courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Hart InterCivic also submitted a proposal.</p><p>The state is mandating that counties select paper-trail machines by the end of this year and start using them by the April 2020 primary.</p><p>Questions surfaced Wednesday about whether council or the election board has the power to choose the county&#8217;s next voting system, with citizen Walter Griffith arguing the election board should be making the decision.</p><p>Election board members agreed the matter must be resolved.</p><p>Before the January 2012 switch to a customized home rule government structure, county commissioners had selected the current electronic voting system, also from ES&amp;S, in their dual capacity as election board members. State law refers to election boards having responsibility to purchase voting machines.</p><p>However, county Chief Solicitor Romilda Crocamo said Wednesday night her office has extensively researched state laws governing elections and home rule and is certain council must pust pick the system.</p><p>The county&#8217;s home rule charter requires council to approve all large contracts, which would include the voting machine one, Crocamo said. The charter does not assign any voting machine selection responsibilities to the election board, she said.</p><p>Crocamo said she will issue a memo this week outlining the office&#8217;s findings, noting the election board is free to provide a non-binding recommendation on a system.</p><p>Election board members said they all personally examined the machine options at demonstrations.</p><p>Ouellette said the selection committee &#8220;took extreme pains to review all these systems in a very impartial way&#8221; before recommending the ES&amp;S one. The solicitor&#8217;s office redacted system prices in the committee&#8217;s report because negotiations are still underway, but Ouellette said Wednesday they were all &#8220;very close&#8221; and that one vendor did not submit a complete price proposal.</p><p>In other business, prior election director Leonard Piazza attended Wednesday&#8217;s meeting and handed each election board member a copy of his resume for the vacant county election director position after the meeting.</p><p>Nine applied for the position vacated by Marisa Crispell&#8217;s recent resignation, but Pedri said earlier this week he likely won&#8217;t select a director until after the Nov. 5 general and may readvertise the position to see if more are interested.</p><p>Pedri said the manager selects the election director under home rule &#8220;following consultation&#8221; with the election board.</p><p>Piazza started working as election bureau deputy director in 2002 and began overseeing the office in April 2004 until his termination in April 2012. A council majority approved a $56,000 settlement in March 2018 to end Piazza&#8217;s litigation contesting his termination. </p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Luzerne County Courthouse </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/web1_oldcourthouse.jpeg.jpg</photo0><caption0>Luzerne County Courthouse </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jennifer Learn-Andes</p><p>jandes@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Luzerne County Election Board issues recommendation on new voting system