County prepares for June 2 state primary
Manager: Duplicate ballot glitch addressed
The manager of Allegheny County’s elections division said Friday he doesn’t know how many duplicate ballots were mailed out in recent weeks, but duplicate mailings did occur, the problem is under control, and he now has no concerns about the department’s ability to mail and count ballots for the June 2 primary.
In a conference call with reporters, Dave Voye, who manages the division that’s had to process a massive influx of vote-by-mail applications and ballots as voters look for an alternative to in-person voting amid COVID-19, said the department started to notice there was a problem with duplicate ballots at the end of April.
Several voters told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this month they had applied for a mail-in or absentee ballot and received more than one in the mail. The county released a statement on the issue Thursday and said it was the result of a bug in the state’s voter registration system.
“We figured it out and stopped it earlier this week,” Mr. Voye said, noting the county was trying to process batches of mailing labels that were too large. The system was timing out and pushing the printed labels back into the queue to be printed again.
Mr. Voye said he believes there have been a few duplicate ballots returned, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to say — at any point in the future — how many duplicates were mailed. He reiterated marked duplicate ballots will not be counted and will be filtered using the identical bar codes on the labels. To prevent duplicates from going out again, the division is processing smaller batches and paying closer attention to what’s processed in the queue, officials have indicated.
The county’s update came on the same day the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed a request by nonprofit groups to compel the state to extend its deadline for voters to submit mail-in and absentee ballots. The cutoff remains 8 p.m. on Election Day.
It also came as the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security released a report warning preventive measures should not cease in the aftermath of the primary, and counties
still need to take “bold action” to prepare for the November general election.
In a series of recommendations written by policy director Chris Deluzio and executive director Beth Schwanke, the institute said the state and counties should send all registered voters an application to vote by mail, provide adequate protective and sanitary equipment for in-person polling places, and recruit poll workers from groups that aren’t as vulnerable to the virus.
“A hotly contested presidential election, unsterilized machines, short-staffed polling places, and crowds of voters and poll workers in close quarters could all contribute to the spread of coronavirus and undermine orderly election administration,” the authors wrote, insisting that it’s a necessity to prepare for the possibility that COVID19 isn’t contained by then.
The institute’s report also stressed the importance of holding the general election on Nov. 3 and said that unlike the primaries, which are essentially a series of party nominating contests, the general must occur at that date under federal law.
Without congressional action, there is no way the president can legally change the date, the report said.
“The President has no authority to delay or move our election in November, and any such attempt would be a self-inflicted constitutional crisis with profound consequences for the health of the Republic,” Mr. Deluzio and Ms. Schwanke wrote.
Instead, stakeholders should prepare for the November election by following Allegheny County’s lead and sending mail-in applications to all registered voters with prepaid postage, an expensive but necessary expansion that “should help to reduce pressure on polling places and poll worker staffing,” they wrote.
For those who still want to vote in person, counties should be equipped with supplies, including masks, gloves and tape to mark the floor for social distancing — items that will be included in protective kits the state purchased and is distributing, the report read. To staff the locations, the institute recommends that counties recruit eligible students, nonconflicted government workers and workers who have been furloughed or laid off.
Mr. Voye said Friday he thinks with the number of people voting by mail, the polls will be “very slow” on primary election day.
The Pitt Cyber report requested that for the general election, state lawmakers “rein in” powers over consolidating polling places.
“Officials would be wise to consider the recommendation to utilize high school gyms — or other large public venues — as vote centers along with other creative ideas to ensure voters are not disenfranchised,” the report read.
Mr. Voye said for the primary, the county has “probably tripled” its staff to respond to the influx in ballot requests and is enlisting help from Department of Court Records employees and seasonal employees from the Parks Department. The division, which had anticipated a turnout of about 200,000 voters, has already processed about 180,000 absentee or mail-in ballot applications, the manager said.
He said the county will do “whatever it takes” to mail and count the ballots, and that he has no concerns about the division’s ability to do so.