Editorial: Existing resources easily available for ballot drop-off

In 2020, dropping off a ballot for no-excuse absentee voting was pretty easy.

In Allegheny County, there were drop boxes in satellite locations of the elections office weeks before the election date. You could fill out your ballot and hand it over Downtown at the elections office in the County Office Building, or you could leave it in drop boxes at the North and South Park ice rinks or the county garage in Carnegie. You could do it at the ski lodge in Boyce Park or the old Shop ’n Save in the Hill District. You could even do it at any Community College of Allegheny County campus.

In Westmoreland County, you could deposit your ballot in a secure box at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity or four other locations throughout the area, as well as at the courthouse.

Both of those have been scaled back dramatically.

The 2021 municipal elections had fewer options. The upcoming primaries for Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial election and midterm elections will be the same.

In Allegheny County, there will be the option of applying for a mail-in ballot at the elections office and casting that ballot immediately if approved.

Westmoreland County will have just one drop box, and it will be at the courthouse. Instead of being in the lobby where it was the past two years, it will be moved to the annex building because of the construction project that has rerouted lots of courthouse business.

These have not been without criticism, even internally. Allegheny County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam objected to the reduction of boxes before the November 2021 election, and Westmoreland County Commissioner Gina Cerilli Thrasher said she would prefer to see more boxes as well.

But it has been suggested as a cost-cutting option rather than being about voter access or politics. Both counties say the majority of their mail-in ballots are, in fact, mailed in. It also makes sense that having the ballots turned in via the security of a county-controlled space keeps the process insulated from suggestions of fraud.

It is just too bad that there aren’t secured properties operated by the counties across their footprint.

Wait a minute. There are.

In Allegheny County, there are 46 magisterial district justice offices. In Westmoreland County, there are 16. These locations are scattered throughout the counties. They securely process criminals, court documents and money every day. Sheriffs deputies are on site regularly.

Wouldn’t it make sense for counties to use the district courts the same way they use courthouses to drop these documents?

This certainly isn’t something that could be implemented for the primary, given the glacial speed at which government tends to move. Knowing bureaucratic red tape, it probably would demand a summit meeting of some kind between counties, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts and the Pennsylvania Department of State — if not the Legislature itself. Though it shouldn’t; other counties such as Centre and Montgomery have used their district court offices.

But it seems like an obvious and easy way to address concerns about cost and security.