Luzerne County’s Election Board reviewed 514 primary election mail ballots during Monday’s adjudication at the Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre, said board Chairwoman Denise Williams.
The board accepted 221 mail ballots during the adjudication, which ran from 9 a.m. to shortly after 4 p.m., Williams said. Those results were added to online unofficial vote tallies on the election page at luzernecounty.org, she said.
For various reasons, the remaining 293 ballots were rejected, Williams said.
Disqualifying defects included “naked” ballots that were not inserted in inner secrecy envelopes and secrecy envelopes that contained names or markings identifying the voters, Williams said. The majority — 151 — were naked ballots, she said.
Unmarked secrecy envelopes are required by law. During processing, these envelopes are shuffled as a way to prevent the linking of ballots to specific individuals.
The board did not yet rule on 269 mail ballots that are missing dates or have dates outside the permissible period on the outer return envelope, Williams said.
Voters are supposed to sign and date the outer envelope.
A federal court ruled Friday that mail ballots without a required date on the return envelope must be allowed in a 2021 county judge race in the state. The county election board is awaiting guidance from the Pennsylvania Department of State on how to proceed, Williams said.
The 269 county ballots in this category did not have dates or contained dates outside the period from April 30 — when most ballots were sent to voters by the county — and Election Day May 17, when ballots are due, Williams said.
Ballots are time-stamped by the election bureau to show when they are received, which can provide verification that they arrived in the bureau within the required range before 8 p.m. on Election Day, Williams said.
The five-citizen, volunteer board will reconvene Tuesday to address the mail ballots with date issues and 321 provisional ballots, Williams said.
Also pending board review Tuesday are 17 military/overseas ballots, she said. While other mail ballots must be received by Election Day, Tuesday is the deadline for receipt of military/overseas ballots as long as they are postmarked by Election Day, she said.
If all goes as planned, the board will wrap up this portion of adjudication by Tuesday, which is in line with state guidance on the completion of unofficial results, Williams said.
The board will then advance to its review of write-in votes and mail/provisional ballots in which voters selected more than the allowable number of candidates or made ambiguous markings in their selections, she said.
Williams noted county Democratic and Republican party chairs were invited to participate in the adjudication, and representatives from both were in attendance Monday. These representatives are permitted to examine the ballots as the board reviews them and ask questions or provide input, Williams said.