Gasquet, Flipkens among 7 on stricter protocols at US Open

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CATE comes to town: Mobile COVID-19 unit visits Wilkes-Barre

Public demonstrations of Luzerne County&rsquo;s new voting machines will be held later this month in the courthouse rotunda on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, the county Election Board announced Wednesday.
				Board members will conduct the sessions over four days: from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sept. 14 and 16 and from 4 to 6 p.m. on Sept. 15 and 17.
				Few voters used the new machines from Dominion Voting Systems Inc. for the first time in the June 2 primary because they were reserved only for the disabled, with others casting paper ballots at a reduced number of polling locations. On Nov. 3, the plan is to return to pre-coronavirus pandemic polling places and use the new machines for all in-person voting.
				With the new election equipment, voters will make selections on computerized devices similar to the way they do now. But instead of touching a screen box to cast the ballot, voters will receive a paper printout to verify their selections before the paper is fed into a tabulator to be read and saved in compliance with a state mandate.
				County Election Director Shelby Watchilla noted residents who cast paper ballots at polling places in the primary already used part of the new system when they placed their ballots into the tabulators to be read.
				Depending on the number of attendees at the demonstration, residents may have to wait their turn in a separate area of the courthouse, with masks and social distancing required, officials said.
				Watchilla told the board her office is &ldquo;full steam ahead&rdquo; preparing for the Nov. 3 general election.
				Working extended hours with the help of staff from other departments, the election bureau is caught up processing all new voter registration applications and changes and is now focused on processing applications for mail-in ballots, she said.
				About 36,400 county mail-in voters already checked a box on their primary applications indicating they want to receive a mail-in ballot again for the Nov. 3 general, and Watchilla estimated 6,000 additional requests have arrived.
				Voters approved for mail-in voting should start receiving their ballots in mid to late September, Watchilla said.
				Board solicitor Michael Butera said several changes related to mail-in voting have been circulating at the state capital, with no final decisions.
				That includes proposals allowing counties to start opening up mail-in ballots 21 or 3 days before the election &mdash; a process known as pre-canvassing &mdash; so they are ready to be loaded into tabulators and tallied on election night, Butera said.
				Many voters are receiving several mail-in ballot applications sent by various outside entities with no connection to the county. Watchilla reiterated that voters should only submit one application so her office is not forced to waste limited resources reviewing and rejecting extra requests.
				Among the updates provided before or during Wednesday&rsquo;s virtual board meeting:
				&#8226; Poll workers
				The county now has 1,078 poll workers signed up for Nov. 3, which does not include more than 50 expressing interest in working this week, Watchilla said. Approximately 1,200 are needed for the general, she said.
				Poll worker training will begin soon, she said.
				&#8226; Deputy director
				Three finalists for the vacant deputy position were interviewed by county staff, and county Manager C. David Pedri expects to hire someone by the end of the week, he told the board in an email communication.
				The election bureau is down to four full-time staffers until the administration hires a deputy director and fills a vacant administrative assistant position.
				&#8226; Republican committee seats
				Some have been complaining about the election bureau&rsquo;s failure to break ties and issue winner certificates for county Republican committee seats in the June 2 primary.
				Butera said the bureau stopped this type of involvement with the Democratic committee seats in the 2018 election following legal research and a review of procedures in other counties. Butera said both parties were informed of the change in 2018, and there were no complaints from the Democratic side in 2018.
				&ldquo;These are party matters that should be determined by the party,&rdquo; Butera said.
				He also noted party committee seats are not public offices, and the results of those races are not included in the candidate results the county must certify and report to the state.
				&#8226; Public comment
				Several citizens and Council members Stephen J. Urban and Walter Griffith presented lingering questions and concerns related to the June 2 primary during a public comment period that ran more than an hour.
				Urban and Griffith focused heavily on a Republican committee candidate, saying she presented a petition to run in her home ward and was listed in a different one on the ballot.
				&ldquo;We should have thrown this entire election out,&rdquo; Urban said.

Voters will get to try new machines before Nov. 3