Westmoreland County aims for safe in-person voting June 2

Westmoreland County Elections Bureau Deputy Director Scott Sistek said additional measures will be implemented at each of the county’s 307 voting precincts to ensure a safe environment for poll workers and voters during the June 2 primary.

Poll workers will wear masks in the precincts and, while voters will not be required to have face coverings, Sistek said it is recommended they do so. Voters without masks will not be turned away, he said.

Each of the touch-screen computer voting machines will be cleaned after each use. Voters will be given Q-tips to use in lieu of their fingers to register votes on the machines. Poll workers are expected to limit the number of voters allowed inside each precinct at any given time.

Voters in line outside of the polls will be asked to observe social distancing, Sistek said.

“We’re hoping they do that because we don’t have the staff to mandate social distancing in lines. Hopefully, people will respect each other and respect social distancing,” Sistek said.

County elections officials are evaluating what turnout will look like for the June 2 presidential primary, when very few races in Westmoreland County are contested on both the Republican and Democratic ballots.

“It’s going to make for an interesting election with the pandemic, the new machines and the presidential election,” Sistek said. “ I hope the voters come out.”

Added to the mix is the first-time option for voters to submit ballots by mail.

As of late last week, 38,000 mail-in ballots were requested by Westmoreland County voters and about 16,000 of them were returned. There are 239,000 registered voters in the county. The elections bureau must receive applications by Tuesday,May 26 at 5 p.m.

All in-person voters will use new machines purchased last year to meet the governor’s requirement that all elections systems have a verifiable paper trail of each vote cast.

The new system, publicly tested Tuesday, requires voters to insert a blank ballot into the computer then vote electronically on a touch screen. Those votes are registered and printed out on a paper ballot that is then manually inserted into a scanner device that logs and stores the paper ballots in locked bins. Each vote will be electronically counted and stored, then later uploaded to county computers at the courthouse on election night after the polls are closed.

The equipment is similar to systems that will be used in neighboring counties including Allegheny, Washington, Beaver, Butler, Greene and Lawrence, according to Sarah Mahon, Western Pennsylvania account manager for Elections Systems and Software, the private company that sold the new voting machines to the counties.

Westmoreland voters in 66 precincts had a preview of the new equipment in March during a special election to fill a vacancy in the state House 58th District. That election was the first where the new voting system was used.