Westmoreland voters could begin receiving mail-in ballots next week

Mail-in and absentee ballots are expected to be sent out to Westmoreland County voters no later than Saturday.

The state’s late certification of ballots two weeks ago delayed the process and final reviews were not completed until this week, said JoAnn Sebastiani, director of the county’s elections bureau. Pending any last-minute issues, the nearly 50,000 voters and counting who requested mail-in ballots should receive them next week.

“We’re doing the final testing of the ballots to make sure they can be read,” Sebastiani said.

The county bought four digital scanners, two more than were on hand for the June primary, to count mail-in ballots cast during the November election.

Sebastiani said requests continue to flow in to the elections bureau in large numbers and as many as 100,000 voters could skip voting in person at the county’s 307 precincts in favor of casting ballots by mail.

As of Tuesday, there were 248,044 registered voters in the county. Those numbers continue to climb, with nearly 5,000 added this month. Voter turnout for the 2016 presidential election was more than 75% in the county, as more than 184,600 ballots were cast.

The last day to register to vote in the presidential election is Oct. 19. Applications for mail-in ballots must be received at the elections bureau by Oct. 27.

A handful of completed ballots sent in September to military personnel stationed overseas already have been returned.

Counting of those ballots and all other mailed votes will begin the morning of the Nov. 3 election, Sebastiani said.

County commissioners will meet Oct. 7 as the elections board to finalize election plans and consider options to collect the high volume of mail-in ballots.

Officials said a drop box will be placed in the front lobby of the courthouse in Greensburg, but a proposal to install them in other locations throughout the county for ballot collections is not likely to be approved.

“We have not made a definitive decision right now, but we will follow the law to a T,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said. “We might just have what we have in place right now, because it takes a lot of questions out of the process.”

Kertes said he wants to avoid having to scramble to alter the process in the final weeks leading up to the election based on a potential 11th-hour court ruling that could invalidate drop boxes or other satellite collections. The state’s Supreme Court this month ruled drop box collections for mail-in ballots are to be allowed, but several state GOP lawmakers this week in a court filing asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.