Allegheny County to roll out $400K marketing campaign ahead of new voting system, laws

Allegheny County will spend $400,000 on a marketing campaign to familiarize the county’s 900,000 registered voters about the new voting system, procedures and laws ahead of the 2020 primary and general elections.

“This is the largest marketing effort that we’ve ever undertaken,” Kevin Evanto, chief marketing officer for Allegheny County, said during a special meeting of the Allegheny County Board of Elections on Tuesday. “Our goal is to make sure that every registered voter in Allegheny County knows about the new system and has an opportunity to come out, see the new system, use it and ask questions, and be prepared.”

Gov. Tom Wolf signed a sweeping election law overhaul in October that included provisions like adding no-excuse mail-in balloting and changing the deadline for voter registration from 30 to 15 days prior to an election. Allegheny County is one of 22 counties across the state that also will contend with implementing new a voting system in addition to working out procedures to implement the new laws.

The county purchased new equipment for the system, which uses hand-marked paper ballots, in September.

“Any time you’re changing a process that people are used to and have been doing for the last 15 or so years, change is always difficult,” said County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, chair of the county Board of Elections. “So, we’ve got 6,500 poll workers at 1,300 precincts learning a new system — learning new scanners, new ballot marking devices, the mail-in ballots — it’s going to be a very difficult process. So, I think we want to do a very robust outreach program so that the voters, as well as the poll workers, know what’s going on.”

There will be about 6 million print advertisements in circulation across the county along with a digital marketing campaign, Evanto said. Advertisements will appear on local broadcast television and in daily, weekly and monthly print publications.

The county also is posting billboards and advertisements in buses, light rail cars and stations; scheduling advertisements on 158 screens in movie theaters across Allegheny County for two months and broadcasting advertisements on local radio stations and Spotify streaming, Evanto said.

The campaign, which will be funded through the Allegheny County marketing budget, will run for two months ahead of the April 28 primary and for another two months ahead of the general election on Nov. 3.

A schedule for public demonstrations of the new voting system will be posted on the county voting information website at www.alleghenyvotes.com.

Demonstrations will begin March 15 at locations across the county, including at branches of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, malls, shopping centers and other county events.

Voters interested in testing out the system will be able to cast sample ballots at those demonstrations.

Allegheny County received the new voting equipment — all of the 1,650 new DS200 precinct scanners and 1,650 ExpressVote ballot marking devices, along with four of the eight DS850 high-speed digital image scanners. The division recently also ordered two additional DS850 scanners.

Training for elected and appointed poll workers also will begin in March.

Ron Bandes, president of the voter advocacy group Vote Allegheny, said he’s confident in the procedures the elections division is developing, but is worried about how changes to rules around mail-in and absentee ballots could pan out during the election days.

Poll workers also could face challenges answering voters’ questions about the elimination of straight-party voting, Bandes said.