Dallas City News

A civil complaint was filed late Friday afternoon against Luzerne County and the county’s five-citizen Election Board primarily over the pace of Nov. 5 general election mail ballot processing.

The filing identifies Republican Jamie Walsh as the plaintiff and cites a backlog of voter registration applications that were submitted before Monday’s deadline.

The county election bureau confirmed Friday that all outstanding requests for new registrations and political party affiliation/address changes have been processed.

The bureau plans to catch up on all outstanding mail ballot requests this weekend, noting additional requests for mail ballots will continue arriving until Tuesday.

County Manager Romilda Crocamo issued a release shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday indicating there were 5,300 mail ballot requests to process.

Voters have until Tuesday to request mail ballots under state law, which is a week before the general election. Crocamo has repeatedly said the county will meet all statutory deadlines.

County Chief Solicitor Harry W. Skene told council by email Friday he is working on appointing legal counsel to represent the county and board.

“I do not feel the claim is actionable based on the progress the bureau has made,” Skene told county council, referring to the status of processing.

The filing was prepared by Milford Attorney Charles Kannebecker and was signed by Attorney Derek Smith.

It said Walsh has a “direct interest” as a candidate. Walsh is running unopposed for state representative in the 117th Legislative District in the Nov. 5 general election following a tight primary election race for the nomination against incumbent Mike Cabell.

Walsh provided this statement:

“The voters of Luzerne County have been disenfranchised for far too long. This election is paramount to have correct. All further questions will be referred to Attorney Kannebecker.”

The litigation in the county Court of Common Pleas seeks an order requiring the county to process all voter registrations submitted before Monday’s deadline and all pending mail ballot applications so voters have time to return them.

To be counted, mail ballots must be physically in the election bureau by 8 p.m. on Nov. 5, and postmarks do not count in meeting the deadline.

The filing said “upon information and belief,” the defendants are “failing and/or refusing” to timely process the registrations and mail ballot requests.

It asserts the defendants are “affecting the right to vote and placed that right to vote in jeopardy because they failed to perform their basic duties under the Pennsylvania Election Code.”

The failure to send out mail ballots in a “proper and timely manner” will prevent the voters from returning them before the deadline, the filing maintaines.

The filing said the defendants have a “pattern and practice of significant and serious failures during elections” in the county.

It cites the following examples: the September 2020 discarding of nine overseas military ballots, November 2022 general election paper shortages that forced court intervention to keep polling places open an extra two hours and the incorrect spelling of 119th District incumbent state representative candidate Alec Ryncavage’s name on this year’s general election mail ballots.

For background, the nine discarded military ballots were retrieved from a dumpster and tallied in the results. The seasonal worker involved was terminated, and federal investigators declined to file criminal charges.

In the misspelling, Dominion Voting Systems, the county’s voting equipment supplier, has taken responsibility for the “Tyncavage” misspelling, citing human error, and agreed to cover the cost of corrected ballots issued to 6,700 impacted mail ballot voters.

The filing points out that efforts to correct that mistake “led to further errors” because several voters are reported to have received two ballots labeled as replacements instead of one.

County Election Board member Rick Morelli, a Republican, said a suit is an unnecessary waste of time and tax dollars because the county already has processed all registrations and is working overtime to get remaining mail ballots in the hands of voters as fast as possible.

Although Walsh and others have been seeking status reports on the processing, Morelli also noted Walsh has commended the election bureau for its work several times in recent meetings.

“How could you file a lawsuit against us when you’re consistently complimenting us on the work we’re doing? It’s just getting out of hand,” Morelli said.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.