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<p>While an implementation deadline looms, Luzerne County Council members will take the necessary time to select a new paper-trail voting system, council Chairman Tim McGinley said Friday.</p><p>&#8220;We won&#8217;t rush into it,&#8221; McGinley said.</p><p>Council must choose a system by the end of the year and start using it during the April 2020 primary under a state mandate requiring paper ballots or receipts that can be checked by voters and kept in case tallies are questioned. Instead of paper ballots, the county is opting for electronic voting machines that generate receipts that voters must review and then feed into a tabulator.</p><p>The selection has become more involved than council had expected because it received conflicting recommendations. County Manager C. David Pedri chose a system from Dominion Voting systems, while one from Election Systems and Software, or ES&amp;S, was recommended by both an employee/citizen selection committee and the county Election Board.</p><p>Hart InterCivic also submitted a proposal.</p><p>Council has no county election director to tap for expertise and input in the decision because Marisa Crispell recently resigned from that position. Even if she was still employed, Crispell was excluded from participation by the administration due to controversy over her ES&amp;S-funded advisory board trips.</p><p>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 at the courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre.</p><p>Monday&#8217;s demonstration will be a &#8220;great start&#8221; for council to interact with the system options but only part of the due diligence, McGinley said.</p><p>&#8220;We certainly will need more than a demonstration to answer all our questions,&#8221; he said.</p><p>The selection comes as council is embarking on lengthy 2020 budget discussions, which will begin with the administration&#8217;s Oct. 15 proposed budget presentation. McGinley said the timing may be a plus because council will be meeting weekly for meetings and/or budget sessions.</p><p>&#8220;We can add the voting system discussion as needed instead of waiting,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Based on public statements about the vendors to date, a representative of Austin, Texas-based Hart InterCivic, released a communication Friday saying the company has been working &#8220;through appropriate channels and procedures&#8221; to make sure county employees involved in the procurement process have a &#8220;complete picture of the competing options available to the county.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Based on reports of comments made by both the county manager and the county&#8217;s advisory committee, we believe there are some inaccuracies or misconceptions that should be addressed before the county makes such an important, long-term decision,&#8221; wrote Hart&#8217;s marketing vice president Steven Sockwell.</p><p>Sockwell released a lengthy list of details to &#8220;correct the record&#8221; on some of the criteria cited in the county machine recommendations, such as machine battery life in an outage.</p><p>The selection committee noted the ES&amp;S backup battery runs six hours while the others have two-hour battery packs, requiring additional batteries to be purchased and charged at polling stations.</p><p>Sockwell said Hart&#8217;s batteries last at least two hours as required by federal certification standards but &#8220;in actual practice last longer.&#8221; Hart&#8217;s batteries also are &#8220;low cost&#8221; and replaceable in the field by any poll worker. In comparison, he asserted the ES&amp;S batteries cannot be removed in the field and must be replaced by an ES&amp;S technician. He also noted the &#8220;up to six hours&#8221; for ES&amp;S batteries may not apply if the machines are in active use by voters.</p><p>Sockwell also said the Hart equipment is more compact and light to aid in transport and setup and that his company would be with the county &#8220;every step of the way&#8221; with a dedicated, onsite team to help with delivery, assembly and testing of all new equipment.</p><p>&#8220;Hart does not charge any extraneous costs for staff system maintenance training like ES&amp;S,&#8221; he wrote.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">A representative of Hart Intercivic demonstrates the company&#8217;s paper-trail voting machine during a Luzerne County expo in February. The company is among three seeking a county contract. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/web1_TTL022819VotingMachines_3.jpg</photo0><caption0>A representative of Hart Intercivic demonstrates the company&#8217;s paper-trail voting machine during a Luzerne County expo in February. The company is among three seeking a county contract. </caption0><photoCredit0>File photo </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 won’t ‘rush into’ decision on new voting system, council chairman says