Westmoreland officials weigh bill for mail-in ballots

Westmoreland County officials said this week no decisions have been reached about how it will handle bills recently received from an Ohio direct mailing company that claimed mechanical issues caused two delays in sending ballots out to voters this fall.

The county received two invoices earlier this month totaling more than $149,000 from Midwest Direct Presort Mailing for the printing and mailing of ballots. The Cleveland-based company was hired in September by the county commissioners to work with the elections bureau this fall.

The county has yet to pay those bills. One charged the county to print about 10,000 ballots that were distributed in person to voters at the courthouse. Another bill for $142,000 was for printing and mailing ballots directly to more than 76,000 voters ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

“We’re still reviewing the invoices,” Westmoreland County Solicitor Melissa Guiddy said.

Westmoreland’s ballots were originally expected to be mailed in early October. The mailing of a first batch of about 50,000 ballots was delayed for a week as the company said it experienced equipment failures and personnel shortages it attributed to the large volume of work from Westmoreland County and numerous counties in Ohio.

Production issues also caused a shorter delay in late October.

The company eventually met its deadline to mail out all of Westmoreland County’s ballots before the end of the month.

“No excuse needed” mail-in voting was used for the first time this year in Pennsylvania. The county printed and mailed out 40,000 ballots for the spring primary.

As the coronavirus pandemic raged, commissioners estimated as many as 100,000 voters would cast ballots by mail in the fall, a number officials feared would be too large to handle internally at the courthouse.

As a result, the commissioners hired Midwest Direct in September and agreed to pay the company $1.70 for each of the first 75,000 ballots mailed out. The price dropped to $1.50 for each additional ballot.

Elections bureau director JoAnn Sebastiani said neither the cost of mail-in ballots nor other expenses associated with the 2020 General Election exceeded expectations.

“Our budget was right in line with what was projected,” Sebastiani said.

More than 81% of the county’s registered voters cast ballots this fall. Canvassing and counting of ballots, a process that took several weeks, did not result in additional expenses, she said.

The only unanticipated cost this fall was a nearly $5,000 bill to buy six drop boxes that were placed at multiple locations throughout the county in late October to allow voters to return ballots without having to submit them through the mail.

Sebastiani said no decision has been made as to whether the drop boxes will be used in future elections.