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Trump pledges to ‘end rain tax’ in WILK interview

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Voter: ‘Thank God I looked at it’

Luzerne County tallied results from 26,612 mail ballots by the time counting wrapped up around 10 p.m. Tuesday, leaving more than 28,000 to tackle Wednesday.
				It&rsquo;s a drastic improvement from the June 2 primary, when workers had tallied approximately 14,000 mail ballots on election night.
				The credit largely went to an automated envelope opener that eliminated the need for workers to manually slice open both the outer and inner secrecy envelopes by hand as they did in the primary, said county Election Director Shelby Watchilla.
				&ldquo;It has made a major difference,&rdquo; Watchilla said of the opener. &ldquo;I think the count has been a huge success.&rdquo;
				Six four-person teams of workers processing the mail ballots in a courtroom at the county&rsquo;s Penn Place building in downtown Wilkes-Barre also tried to plow through more this time around, guided with experience from the primary, officials said.
				Mail ballots could not be unsealed until 7 a.m. under state election law, and reporting of the results had to wait until 8 p.m.
				County Manager C. David Pedri said early in the day teams were processing at a pace of approximately 2,000 ballots per hour. In the afternoon, he said workers were &ldquo;keeping their pace up all day&rdquo; unsealing and scanning the mail ballots so they were ready when the actual tabulation was permitted at 8 p.m.
				&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long day and a repetitive task. They&rsquo;re working hard. They&rsquo;ve been reviewing everything and had a good attitude throughout the entire process,&rdquo; Pedri said, commending their work ethic.
				The lion&rsquo;s share of mail ballots could have been counted by election night if the state would have allowed counties to start unsealing and preparing the ballots for tabulation &mdash; known as pre-canvassing &mdash; before Election Day, Pedri said.
				County teams will resume their count of mail ballots between 8 and 9 a.m. Wednesday and start posting updates at <a href="https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/PA/Luzerne/106501/web.264614/#/summary" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">luzernecounty.org</a> at 10 a.m., he said. The site should be refreshed every two hours to incorporate additional mail ballots, Pedri said.
				The county has logged receipt of 54,776 mail ballots from voters. However, county Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik said there are several trays of ballots that came in before 8 p.m. that have not yet been scanned in as received. These additions could bring the count closer to 60,000 turned in by Election Day, he said.
				In total, the county had issued 71,017 mail ballots to county voters.
				Machine votes
				By 11:30 p.m., the county had tallied 116,778 votes, which means at least 90,166 voters cast their ballots on electronic ballot marking devices at 129 polling places throughout the county. That number results from subtracting the already-counted mail ballots from the total.
				Once all 54,776 mail ballots cast so far are counted, the vote tally will reach approximately 145,000. That equates to a turnout of 66%.
				However, that percentage will grow because:
				&#8226; The trays of mail ballots received before 8 p.m. on Election Day must still be recorded as received.
				&#8226; A few results from the electronic ballot marking devices must be tallied on Wednesday morning, according to Parsnik.
				&#8226; An unknown number of provisional ballots cast at polling places will be added. Provisional ballots are marked by hand and reviewed last as part of an adjudication process to verify the voters are eligible and did not already cast a mail ballot.
				Some county officials have predicted a turnout around 69% to 70%.
				The county had 219,451 residents registered to vote in the general election, according to the county.
				Naked ballots
				Fewer than 1% of the mail ballots reviewed to date were &ldquo;naked,&rdquo; which meant they were not inserted in a secrecy envelope &mdash; a step required for them to be counted, Pedri said Tuesday afternoon.
				If workers encountered naked ballots, the voter&rsquo;s party was informed so it could attempt to contact the voter, Pedri said. Voters who were reached had the option to vote by provisional ballot at their polling places before 8 p.m., he said.
				This remedy won&rsquo;t be available for naked ballots discovered in processing that occurs after Election Day, officials have said.

Waiting Game: Luzerne County turnout at least 66% but will grow