Luzerne County provides statistic on voided general election ballots

Home News Luzerne County provides statistic on voided general election ballots Facebook Twitter Pinterest Linkedin ReddIt Email Print By Jennifer Learn-Andes [email protected] 🔊 Listen to this In last week’s Nov. 3 general election, 1,393 Luzerne County polling place ballots were voided, which could occur for a variety of reasons, including voters making a mistake on their initial ballot, officials said. Before 2026, voters made their selections on electronic ballot-marking devices that automatically prevented them from choosing more than the allowable number of candidates, known as overvoting, or scribbling on the ballot, called an extraneous mark. Those built-in restrictions are no longer in place because the county changed to hand-marked paper ballots this year as part of its switch to new leased voting equipment from Hart InterCivic. Instead, the new system’s tabulator displays messages on a screen alerting voters of overvotes and extraneous marks when they feed their ballot into the tabulator. Voters in this situation have the option to ask a poll worker for a new ballot. To ensure accurate ballot-auditing reports, poll workers must void and retain the first ballot — a process called spoiling. The 1,393 spoiled ballots were publicly reported because the county started separately tracking and documenting the statistic as part of the post-election reconciliation process. This general election spoiled ballot figure can hopefully serve as a baseline for comparisons in future elections, county Election Board Chairwoman Christine Boyle said Thursday. County officials have emphasized a procedure is in place for spoiling before a new ballot is issued to a voter at the polling place. Poll workers must write “spoiled” across both sides of the initial ballot, cross out the QR code and barcode, and place those ballots in a spoiled ballot envelope kept in secure storage. In other election updates, the board has accepted 13 additional provisional and military/overseas ballots since its initial Friday adjudication session. The additions mean 112,515 of the county’s 209,504 voters cast ballots, for a 53.71% turnout, according to an updated results report at luzernecounty.org . For comparison, county turnout was 57.25% in the last November 2022 gubernatorial general election. The county has completed a mandatory audit of 2% of the ballots, with no errors found, Boyle said. For this audit, the county rescanned ballots from several of the 186 voting precincts to verify they matched what was initially recorded. The election board is scheduled to publicly certify the county general election results at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Instructions for the remote attendance option will be posted in the council’s authorities, boards, and commissions online meeting section at luzernecounty.org . Local journalism matters, and your support makes it possible. You can help sustain this work by making a donation or choosing one of our subscription options. Subscribers enjoy valuable benefits, including full access to our e-edition, a reduced ad experience on timesleader.com, and more. Your support helps ensure independent, high-quality local news remains available today and for future generations. Thank you for standing with local journalism. Click for subscription offers. Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes. RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR ‘A Democratic trifecta’: Winners weigh in on Pennsylvania midterm results and the work ahead Luzerne County has dip in voter turnout compared to 2022 midterm Incumbent Brenda Pugh defeats challenger Fern Leard in 120th House District