Dem-Controlled Pa. Board Tosses 142 Ballots In Trump Stronghold
The article discusses a significant issue in the Luzerne County elections in Pennsylvania, where the Democrat-led Election Board rejected 142 mail-in ballots from a district that historically supports Donald Trump. This decision stemmed from a clerical error by election staff, who mixed the ballots with others, leading to their disqualification.
The affected ballots were from the 119th Legislative District, and their rejection occurred after it was found that the county had issued new ballots to voters due to a previous error in the original ballots. On Election Day, numerous mail-in ballots arrived improperly processed, making it difficult to identify the voters and their intentions. Consequently, many voters may have been disenfranchised due to what officials described as “sloppy clerical practices.”
This incident raises concerns about election integrity in Luzerne County and has been highlighted by election activists, including Trump’s supporters, who worry about the reliability of local election administration. the article emphasizes the implications of this mistake and the potential for voter discontent in future elections.
The Democrat-led Luzerne County Election Board voted Friday to reject 142 mail-in ballots from a Donald Trump-voting stronghold in Pennsylvania after staffers screwed up the ballot processing.
The votes came from the 119th Legislative District, a portion of Lucerne County. This year, Trump received 90,370 votes in Luzerne County, while Vice President Kamala Harris received 59,966 votes. Trump flipped the county red by double digits in 2016.
But his 20-point lead in 2024 isn’t as large as it could be because 142 ballots were disqualified because an election worker mixed them in with others. If the margin were tighter, these tossed ballots also could have affected the recount between Republican Senate candidate David McCormick and Democrat candidate Bob Casey.
Election workers were supposed to segregate thousands of mail-in ballots that arrived on Election Day because the county had sent roughly 7,000 new ballots out to voters after it discovered the original ballots had a spelling error. The ballots had to be segregated because “the board had intended to revisit the original ones and accept them if the voters never returned a new one,” according to Times Leader.
Only one ballot can be counted. Then an election worker made a mistake that made this original plan impossible. On Election Day 1,301 mail-in ballots were mistakenly opened and separated from their outer envelopes, according to Times Leader. The outer envelope includes identifying information about the voter.
The county determined that of the 1,301 ballots returned on Election Day, 1,159 came from voters who also submitted one of the reissued ballots that was accepted and counted, according to Times Leader. But the county says it was unable to determine whether 142 ballots that had been removed from their outer envelopes were cast by a voter who had also sent in a reissued ballot, so the county rejected them.
This means that, due to what election officials describe as sloppy clerical practices, 142 voters may have been disenfranchised.
Luzerne County has been the focus of election integrity activists, including the president-elect. The Washington Post reported before the election that Trump and his supporters “have homed in on allegations that local election administrators could be undermining the process and can’t be trusted.” Why should voters trust a county in which an election worker’s error could have resulted in 142 voters’ ballots being tossed?
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