Officials in a northeastern Pennsylvania county where paper shortages caused Election Day ballot problems deadlocked Monday on whether to report official vote tallies to the state, effectively preventing their certification of the results.
Two Democratic members of the Luzerne County Board of Elections and Voter Registration voted to certify, both Republicans voted “no” and the fifth member, Democrat Daniel Schramm, abstained.
Schramm said in a phone interview several hours later that after the meeting he received assurances that few if any voters were unable to cast ballots and that all provisional ballots had been counted. He said he planned to vote in favor of certifying the results at a board meeting set for Wednesday.
“I wanted to research to see exactly how many people were just not allowed to vote. I couldn’t find any,” Schramm said.
He said elections officials contacted 125 judges of elections from the county’s 187 precincts “and they reported nobody being turned away.”
A judge extended voting in Luzerne by two hours, to 10 p.m., during the Nov. 8 election after the supplies ran short at some polling places.
Monday is the deadline for counties to certify general election results to the state. In a statement, the Department of State said it was contacting Luzerne officials “to inquire about the board’s decision and their intended next steps.”