Westmoreland officials look to improve election process as last mail-in ballots are counted

As the counting of absentee primary ballots continued Wednesday, Westmoreland County officials said a plan to improve the speed of reporting election results is a top priority before the November general election.

More than 40,000 mail-in ballots were received this spring for an election with no contested races during a pandemic that left many voters weary of heading to precincts to participate in the primary. With key races — including presidential, congressional and state legislature — to be on November’s ballot, officials expect voter participation, including in-person and mail-in voting, to double this fall.

“We have to make the process more efficient,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said.

Mail-in votes accounted for more than half of all ballots cast Tuesday. According to unofficial results, more than 37,000 votes were cast in person at the county’s 307 precincts. Tallies from those ballots were made public Tuesday night.

That left the results from 40,000 mail-in ballots to be counted. In all, turnout among Democratic and Republican voters reached about 40%.

Elections Bureau Director Beth Lechman expected final, unofficial results to be completed by Wednesday night, about a day earlier than initial estimates. That figure will exclude about 1,250 provisional ballots cast at the polls Tuesday. Provisional ballots will be counted Friday, she said.

Officials said they want to speed up the process so a more complete picture of results will be available within hours of polls closing.

“We have to discuss our future plans for the fall, having additional staff and resources,” Lechman said.

State law prevents mail-in ballots from being opened and counted prior to Election Day. County officials said they will lobby to change that.

For the primary, the county used 40 employees in two shifts to count mail-in ballots, utilizing two electronic envelope openers and two high-speed scanners to process votes in a conference room at the courthouse.

In March, commissioners approved spending $94,000 to buy two additional scanners, but those machines are on back order, Lechman said. Officials will consider buying or leasing additional scanners for the fall election.

More staff and equipment could require moving the counting process to a larger site not in the courthouse.

Elections officials said there were only minor issues associated with Tuesday’s primary, most of which were attributed to the voting equipment that was used countywide for the first time. Lechman said several polls opened a few minutes late and others had issues with the mechanics of closing the voting machines at night’s end.

Data from votes recorded at the polls were hand delivered to the courthouse by precinct workers who drove into a courthouse parking garage to turn over computer memory devices that were uploaded to a counter server. Paper ballots scanned at the polls were delivered in locked boxes to the courthouse and transferred to the county’s elections warehouse in Greensburg.

Officials said they expect the voting and counting process will improve with time.

“It’s an initiation by fire right now,” Kertes said.