Elections office workers in Westmoreland County will have to begin counting mail-in ballots at 7 a.m. when polls open and continue working around the clock until the process is complete.

It’s part of a pledge county commissioners made this week when they signed off on a deal to accept a state grant of more than $1.2 million to help pay for the November general election and next spring’s primary.

The funds are from a $45 million program approved this summer by state lawmakers to help pay for elections.

“We can only use it on elections. What we can use it on is really limited. I would say this really has a neutral effect on our budget. Act 77 has created such an expense on counties, this pretty much covers that expense,” Commissioner Doug Chew said.

Act 77 is the law approved in 2019 that authorized the use of no-excuse mail-in ballots.

As part of the state’s election integrity program, counties that receive these latest grants have to meet requirements for the processing of mail-in ballots. Counting must begin when polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day and continue uninterrupted until completed.

Counties that accept the grants also have to make public the total number of mail-in ballots received and have a full complement of paper ballots available on Election Day.

“The only one that is new for Westmoreland County is counting nonstop,” Chew said. “We did stop for a few hours (during the spring primary) for people to rest. Everything else, Westmoreland County has been up to date on.”

Commissioners said the cost associated with continual vote counting has been not been determined, but the expectation is additional staff will be needed. The county will evaluate its election costs in the months leading up to the November’s election to decide how the money should be spent.

The elections bureau is supervised by Greg McCloskey, who also serves as the county’s public works director. He said he doesn’t anticipate a problem with around-the-clock counting but admitted more staff might be needed.

“It’s a check and balance for what the election bureau should be doing,” McCloskey said.

Nearly 24%, or 20,626 of the more than 87,000 ballots cast in the county during the spring primary, were completed by mail.

The county budgeted more than $1.8 million to operate its election bureau in 2022, which covered an anticipated increase in expenses prompted by the use of the no-excuse mail-in ballots. Commissioners also allocated money from the county’s portion of the American Rescue Plan funds to increase the pay of Election Day poll workers.

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