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Before polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day, Luzerne County poll workers must scramble to manually enter the latest voters who signed up for mail ballots into the electronic poll books used at sign-in.
				The issue came up during Thursday&rsquo;s Luzerne County Council&rsquo;s Election Inquiry Committee meeting because some late polling place openings have been blamed on workers burdened with last-minute poll book data entry.
				This supplemental update is necessary because voter data must be loaded into poll books before the deadline for voters to apply for a mail ballot, officials say. The mail ballot application deadline was 5 p.m. on Oct. 27, or a week before the Nov. 3 general election.
				Speaking after the inquiry committee meeting, county Election Director Shelby Watchilla said there would not be enough time to program and prepare the poll books for delivery if she waited until the mail ballot application deadline had passed.
				The last-minute data entry wasn&rsquo;t an issue in prior years because there weren&rsquo;t many mail voters when the state required them to provide a reason for requesting an &ldquo;absentee&rdquo; ballot, Watchilla said. The supplemental lists have been significantly larger this year with the popularity of no-excuse mail voting, which was authorized by bi-partisan state legislation that passed last year, she said.
				Citizen Brian Dwyer told the inquiry committee the Larksville polling place, where he observed as a poll watcher, did not open until 8:20 a.m., largely due to delays entering the supplemental poll book data. He questioned whether people who left because they could no longer wait ever came back to cast their ballots.
				Dwyer blamed the problem on the late mail ballot application deadline and said state legislators should address the issue.
				County Councilman Stephen J. Urban, who serves on the inquiry committee, and Councilman Walter Griffith asserted problems with the supplemental lists or data entry could prevent poll workers from detecting someone who received a mail ballot, allowing someone to vote twice on both the machine and by mail.
				Watchilla said the supplemental list captures everyone who applied for a mail ballot through the deadline, and poll workers were instructed to check both the poll books and printed supplemental list if they were unable to enter the data before polls opened.
				There is no ability to cast a second ballot if poll workers cross reference both lists, Watchilla said, because voters who applied for a mail ballot were not permitted to vote on the machines unless they presented their ballot and both envelopes to be voided, she said. If voters did not turn in the ballot and materials, they had to fill out a provisional ballot by hand, she said.
				Provisional ballots are reviewed last by the county Election Board to make sure voters did not cast a mail ballot. The board rejected some provisional ballots this week &mdash; the exact number is unclear &mdash; because records showed those voters already had submitted a mail ballot that was received by the county.
				However, Watchilla supports moving back the state mail ballot application deadline, saying it would allow most or all of the mail data to get loaded into poll books and help address concerns about mail delivery timing.
				A representative of Election Systems & Software, or ES&S, which supplied the county&rsquo;s electronic poll books, said the county voter data entered into poll books for the Nov. 3 general was extracted on Oct. 22.
				Most of Thursday&rsquo;s two-hour inquiry committee was spent on discussions with representatives of ES&S and Dominion Voting Systems Inc., the county&rsquo;s new voting system supplier.
				Both companies responded to committee questions about their equipment performance and training supplied to the county, including poll workers.
				John Hastings, Dominion&rsquo;s regional sales manager, said his company had three representatives on site in the county on Election Day, or one more than requested.

Last-minute poll book additions discussed by election inquiry committee