Westmoreland County: Almost 70,000 mail-in ballots approved

The Ohio company processing mail-in ballots for Westmoreland County has sent more than 64,000 to the post office and is up-to-date with its processing, a county election official said Thursday.

Midwest Direct of Cleveland, which prints and mails the ballots, handled 64,604 ballots as of Tuesday, with an additional 3,800 mail-in ballot requests transmitted electronically in the past two days, said JoAnn Sebastiani, the county’s elections director. There have been 69,319 requests for mail-in absentee ballots approved.

“We are caught up,” Sebastiani said at an elections board meeting.

Voters have until Oct. 27 to register for a mail-in ballot. The county has received 28,410 returned mail-in ballots, though state law prevents them from being counted until Election Day, Sebastiani said.

A spokesperson for Midwest Direct could not be reached for comment Thursday. Midwest experienced problems this month in Westmoreland and Allegheny counties. About 29,000 Allegheny voters received wrong ballots; those voters have since been sent ballots that are correct for their voting district. The initial batch of ballots for Westmoreland voters was delayed a week before being mailed.

To handle the flood of mail-in ballots, the elections board Thursday approved an additional 22 persons to review and count provisional ballots, raising the total to about 30, Sebastiani said.

The county authorized 24 people, including Sebastiani, to collect ballots at the drop-off boxes when those boxes are closed at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and again next weekend, and by 9 p.m. from the drop-off box in the county courthouse lobby.

Ballots can be dropped off between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday at Westmoreland County Community College, 1150 Fifth Ave., New Kensington; the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity; and the Adult Probation Office at 301 Riverview Ave., Monessen. Drop-off boxes will be available from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at the Community College, 6707 Mellon Road, Murrysville, and the Westmoreland County Community College main campus, near Youngwood. Ballot boxes will be available at both Community College sites Oct. 31 and the Monessen, New Kensington and airport sites Nov. 1.

The drop-off box in the courthouse lobby will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the elections bureau office will be open for voters to drop off ballots until 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

With President Trump calling supporters to be ready to watch the polls, county officials said only those persons who have registered with the county elections office are permitted to serve as poll watchers. No one has yet to register for that duty, Sebastiani said, but she expects people will do so closer to Nov. 3.

Under state law, only registered voters in the county can be poll watchers. And individual poll watchers can perform those duties in only one district.

Political candidates can appoint two watchers per district, and political parties can appoint three watchers per district.