Lebanon County officials provide final update before Nov. 4 municipal election

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

Lebanon County students will once again assist election officials at the municipal election on Tuesday, Nov. 4, in a program that’s become a statewide model for other school districts.

Lebanon County’s 60 polling locations open at 7 a.m. and remain open until 8 p.m. Voters can find their polling precincts here.

Sean Drasher, director of the Lebanon County elections office, and two other staff members in his office provided an election update following the conclusion of the Lebanon County Commissioners’ meeting on Thursday, Oct. 16.

Read More: Lebanon County inks hazmat services agreement with Lancaster County

Student poll workers

Jamie Shoemaker, elections administrator, said she’s sent student poll worker information packets to all six Lebanon County public school districts, adding that 30 students from Lebanon School District, 12 from Cedar Crest School District  and two students from Our Lady of the Cross will work the polls in November. As before, there will be two Lebanon high school students at each of the 15 polling locations in the city.

“We’ll have about 44 students involved this year, which is just a little lower than the presidential election last year,” Shoemaker said. “I will keep communications open with the schools and hope to have more students involved in the spring.”

Shoemaker said she’d like to add a FAQ section to the election department’s website to answer questions students or their parents may have about student involvement in the election process.

“If we’re able to pull in just one more district, ELCO or maybe Palmyra, we’ll break 10% of our poll workers as students again,” Drasher said. “In an off (election) year, that’s pretty good.”

Commissioner Mike Kuhn said he believes the program is a model for the state, a comment that Drasher confirmed. 

“Our state liaison leans on us and Jamie a lot, and there are a lot of counties trying to do what we do, and the cornerstone is Lebanon High,” Drasher said. “They’ve been rock solid from the beginning and the liaison from Lebanon High is phenomenal. Building off of that, we have interest from other districts as well.”

Board chairman Robert Phillips said youth involvement at the polls is his favorite part of the election process.  

“The outreach to the schools, that just, you know, produces strong voting records in the future, you know, by getting in front of them at that age, so that’s great,” Phillips said. 

Lebanon city resident Pam Tricamo asked if the elections office had approached home-schooling groups to also become involved in elections. 

“I would love to, and is one of the reasons I want to get it on the website so those students can be involved as well,” Shoemaker said. “I have cyber school students, so once they are old enough, I’d love to be able to have them or other cyber school students involved. That would be fantastic.”

Shoemaker added there’s a movement towards providing students who work the polls with letters of recommendation that they can include with their college applications, which is an initiative she said she would love to see implemented.

Commissioner Jo Ellen thanked the elections team for their work and Shoemaker for her passion for encouraging youths to become poll workers. 

Students, like other poll workers, are paid for their services for the day while learning and watching how the voting system functions behind the scenes.  

Lebanon County registered voter figures

Drasher provided other updates, including the current number of registered voters in Lebanon County. 

He said there are 92,954 registered voters, of which 52,646 are Republicans and 24,968 are Democrats. By comparison, there were 88,000 registered voters in 2021, according to Drasher, approximately a 1,000 voter gain annually.

Mail-in ballot figures

Deputy director Joy Scarbrough said the elections office had received 1,970 mail-in ballots so far of the nearly 9,500 that had been mailed to registered voters. Lebanon County’s election office only sends ballots to those voters who request them.

“About 150 were delivered to the elections office, 1,700 that were delivered by mail, and 170 that have been received at the (drop-off) outdoor location,” Scarborough said. 

The last day to request a mail-in ballot is Tuesday, Oct. 28 and all ballots must be in the possession of election officials when the polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4. Undelivered ballots that are in the mail at that time or delivered past the 8 p.m. deadline will not be counted for the election.

Drasher noted that he believes all mail-in ballots should be calculated by about lunchtime on Election Day and that whatever ballots come in by 8 p.m. will be counted that evening. 

Lebanon City registered voters

Drasher shared one other election figure that he said “jumped out at him.”

He noted there are 14,018 voters in the city, with 5,633 registered as Democrats and 4,956 Republicans – a party affiliation difference of 677. He added those figures moved by about 200 voters to the Democrat side following the last election. 

“Post-presidential elections there’s always a drop-off for everyone but it looks like that one side slipped more than the other,” added Drasher. 

Public comment

Tricamo asked the election board and officials why Lebanon County does not participate in the state’s SURE notification system, which informs voters if there is a problem with their mail-in ballot. Some problems include a missing signature or date on the ballot. 

She added that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has voted to permit election offices to notify their voters if there is an issue with their ballot after it has been submitted. She said the notification system informs voters to allow them to contact their elections office or to vote via a provisional ballot on Election Day.

Drasher replied the county is already using the SURE codes to scan ballots. Lebanon County solicitor Matt Bugli added he called about 200 voters during the last election to tell them there was a problem with their ballot and that other election officials also called other voters.

Tricamo said she was informed that during one previous election that Lebanon County only applied the codes two weeks after the election, which prohibited voters in that election from participating in it. 

Bugli responded that the county, in light of the ruling, conducted its own notifications with him and other election officials reaching out to voters on Election Day. 

“The Supreme Court recently affirmed the commonwealth court in saying the voter has the due process right when their ballot is set aside and they have the right to cast a provisional ballot and have it counted,” Bugli said. “In those two respects, we are compliant in that we are notifying voters.”

Bugli added that the law does not require counties to use the SURE notification system to inform voters when there is a problem with their ballot.