Lebanon County Commissioners took action on Thursday, July 18, to further ease the minds of mail-in ballot voters.
Although the county has been able to track ballots that are mailed to registered voters, they’ve had no way to follow ballots being returned to the county elections office via mail through the U.S. Postal Service.
Until now.
During the county election board meeting, commissioners voted to approve spending 10 cents to track every mail-in ballot that’s returned via the U.S. Postal Service to election headquarters.
Lebanon County Commissioners also serve as county election officials unless they’re running for re-election. The county election board meeting commenced following the commissioners’ regularly scheduled biweekly meeting.
Sean Drasher, county elections director, said having the capability to track outbound and inbound mail-in ballots, which is expected to be about 8,000 for this election cycle, will be a great help to office staff.
“We haven’t been able to track when the voter mails it back to us, but that is now becoming available to us beginning with this fall’s election,” said Drasher. “It’s an added cost, but it’s fairly small. This will give us the ability when a voter calls in to say this is where it is in the postal flow. For the cost, I think it is a nice little window for reassurance for the voters, so I think we should consider doing it.”
While the election is still about four months away, Drasher said action needs to happen now to inform USPS officials since those pieces of mail must be processed through different machinery.
“It requires variable barcode tracking to do that, so you’d have to decide now for the fall,” said Drasher. “I’d recommend for that cost that it is a nice little bit of insurance for voters.”
Drasher answered two questions by election board member Bob Phillips concerning the expected number of mail-in ballots for the upcoming election and how the inbound tracking system project would be funded. Voter turnout for this election cycle is expected to be large.
Drasher stated requests are ahead of past years and that 8,000 mail ballots are expected to be distributed. He added the project could be covered by the county’s Election Integrity grant.
All Pennsylvania counties in 2023 received state funding through that grant program. Lebanon County’s share was $470,000.
LebTown asked how much was spent from the current grant. Drasher said the county has disbursed $370,000 while also noting there is an expectation that the grant will be renewed for next year.
Drasher also provided a number of other updates, including American with Disabilities Act compliance at the county’s 60 voting precincts, educational forums regarding mail-in ballot requirements at local nursing homes, precinct consolidation/splitting and voter roll maintenance.
Election officials have been visiting county precinct sites to ensure regulations concerning accessibility for voters is ADA compliant. Those inspections have been progressing but has been somewhat hampered by the unrelenting heat experienced in the Lebanon Valley for most of the summer.
While the county must re-certify annually that it is compliant, this year officials are taking a different approach to have that assurance.
“Every July we re-certify that we haven’t changed any polling places, we’re ADA compliant based on no changes from the previous year,” said Drasher. “We’re actually going on a deep dive this summer … where we’re going to every physical polling place ourselves and we’re using the packet developed for the county by Dauphin County that’s very detailed.”
Those “detailed” instructions include such steps as measuring parking spots, the ramps, including the length and width of those access points, to verify ADA compliance.
“We’re not just going on the polling places word, we’re going to measure it ourselves,” said Drasher. “So it’s slow. We were hoping to be done by mid-July, but, frankly, it’s just been so hot and we’ve not been out in the field doing it as much as I thought we would. We’re halfway done and with the break in the weather, we’ll probably break out another 10 or so in the next week.”
LebTown asked Drasher if county election officials have encountered any issues at the polling places where they’ve already completed their inspections.
“We were expecting to find problems, but things are very good overall,” he said.
Drasher told the election board members that the nursing home visits are happening to ensure staff and residents have the information they need while also being compliant with state law. The six area visits so far have covered how to get to voting precincts, mail-in ballot legalities, and ensuring nursing home officials have adequate paperwork for residents who wish to register.
“Every place we’ve gone they’ve said, ‘This is wonderful, this is wonderful,’” he added.
Phillips asked Drasher if the visits were at skilled and assisted living facilities, with Drasher answering that three of the first six have been at Londonderry Village based on what level of care is being provided to their residents. Drasher also noted that another 10 upcoming visits are “on the books” with another half-dozen waiting to be scheduled.
He stated election officials’ strategy at these meetings has been to take a firm legal stance.
“It’s OK to help someone who is blind to fill out their ballot but it’s illegal to tell them who to vote for,” said Drasher. “It seems obvious, but people want to help.”
Election board chairman Mike Kuhn thanked Drasher’s department for what he said is a “great goal” and offered to provide him with his contacts at the hospital for even greater outreach.
Drasher said he was willing to take any contacts the commissioners would share, with Phillips quipping that he has none because he hasn’t applied to any of them.
Although implementation is more than a year away, Drasher and county solicitor Matt Bugli highlighted their early discussions concerning precinct consolidation or, in cases of larger precincts, splitting them into two entities.
Bugli said he’s started to examine case law and what’s articulated in the election code regarding precinct consolidation/expansion. He added that the process involves county election officials approving a consolidation or expansion action and then having the county file a petition with the courts.
“There are notice requirements and then the court sets a hearing. It has to be posted in five spots in a conspicuous location of every precinct that could be affected,” said Bugli. “So there are a lot of onerous notice requirements that go along with that and then the court will hold a hearing on the consolidation or other action regarding moving a boundary for a district.”
Bugil noted both Drasher and he agree that nothing should happen this year since it’s a presidential election year and also to be sure the county works to ensure it’s in compliance with any consolidation or expansion action it may enact.
Bugli noted the election code has stated since 1999 that voting districts should have no fewer than 100 registered voters and no more than 1,200 registered voters. Bugli added the law does permit more than 1,200 voters to a precinct but that you must show the court “good cause” to maintain the status quo.
Commissioner Jo Ellen Litz said the county had pursued similar action previously with Judge Samuel A. Kline ruling that all precincts must be examined as a whole for either consolidation or division. It was noted that the county explored that previously in the late 2000s.
“We have some (precincts) that are more than 3,000 (voters) and that’s almost three times the legal limit, so we do need to look at all of them,” added Litz.
Drasher said that although the clerks do data maintenance every day, there are times when that work “comes in waves.”
Deputy director Joy Scarbrough said the last two months have been intense as officials have mailed 4,618 notices to registered voters whose names have been provided by USPS or PennDOT as change of address. Additionally, deceased notifications totaled 645 and 8,440 voters have been tagged as inactive.
Drasher emphasized that inactive doesn’t mean they’ve been scrubbed from voter rolls.
“It just means that they haven’t voted in a couple of elections and it means that we are keeping an eye on them,” said Drasher. “They have two federal elections to do something, to take an action to get in contact with us. They get another federal election after that and then they’re taken off the books.”
Drasher stated many voters only cast a ballot every four years during the presidential election cycle and that’s why their status is marked as inactive.
In still another update, Drasher announced that the election code has been changed to amend forms and the envelope for mail-in ballots. He noted the voting instructions layout was the biggest revision and that there’s no work-around to use existing stock that was pre-printed and stored at the warehouse.
Bugli stated all counties are facing this change and that the election code in this instance is very clear on what the law requires.
The only other action taken by the elections board was approving their May 3, 2024, meeting minutes.
In other non-election business, County Commissioners received an update from the Campbelltown Community Alliance thanking them for providing a Marcellus Shale grant to make renovations to Campbelltown Community Park.
Jennifer Bushta, president of the CCA, said the $25,000 matching (50-50) grant enabled the organization to renovate the park’s playground along with a SHARES grant that was secured by South Londonderry Township officials.
“Thanks to local businesses and the community, that was achieved in less than a year,” said Bushta. “South Londonderry Township also received a local SHARES grant in the amount of $70,616, and this is what was needed to finalize the playground project in one phase and make it really special for the community.”
The project commenced late fall 2021 and over 220 manpower hours of planning, design and fundraising later, the park facelift occurred on Oct. 28, 2023, with 70-plus volunteers logging over 560 manpower hours to complete the work. The playground opened for use one week later on Nov. 4.
Read More: Campbelltown Community Alliance holds dedication at community park playground
“This is such a great benefit for our small community and we want to sincerely thank the Lebanon County Commissioners for granting the funds to get started,” said Bushta. “This was literally the beginning of the Campbelltown Community Park playground project. Additionally, we want to pay respect to (past commissioner) Bill Ames for encouraging CCA to apply for the grant. With lots of hard work, planning and a wonderful community, we did.”
In other business, commissioners voted to:
- Apply for a PCoRP grant from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania totaling $10,640 to pour four new concrete pads, repair sidewalk cracks and grind concrete tripping hazards on Lehman and Weidman streets near the Mental Health/Intellectual Disabilities/Early Intervention building. The work will be performed by Lebanon-based Stewart Masonry Inc.
- Table three hotel tax grant applications until at least their Aug. 1 meeting since remaining funds in the county’s hotel tax grant fund are below the requested amounts by three organizations. The county is creating a proposal to address the low balance and other actions they may implement to address this issue.
- Remove an agenda item concerning DHL and a multimodal transportation fund grant.
- Provide full real estate tax exemptions to two fully disabled veterans or their families.
- Accept the minutes of their July 3 meeting, June 10 workshop, treasurer’s reports and various personnel transactions.
The next meeting of the county commissioners in room 207 at the county municipal building is Thursday, Aug. 1, beginning at 9:30 a.m.
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