In Luzerne County, election officials work to maintain trust in the voting process amid threats and misinformation

Election workers in Luzerne County noticed what would become a national headline the minute the polls opened Nov. 8, 2022: Many machines hadn’t been properly stocked with the special ballot paper needed for people to cast their vote.

The issue affected about one in five machines across more than 180 polling locations, according to one county official. A Common Pleas judge ordered polls to remain open until 10 p.m., but the blunder had already given fodder to those who wished to cast doubt on the integrity of elections in the county.

Two years later, conservative activists still bring up that incident as a sign that at best, the county is unprepared for the 2024 election, and at worst, voters are being disenfranchised. County elections officials describe being under intense pressure to maintain faith in the election process in the closely watched, once reliably blue county that Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2020. What’s more, they have to do it under a siege of threats and misinformation.

On the receiving end of a slew of threats, Romilda Crocamo, the county manager and Democrat who oversees the Bureau of Elections, has spent recent months reminding voters that poll workers and election staffers are their neighbors.

“They’re the people who you go to church with, they’re the people who you see little league games, you see them at the grocery store,” she said. “There’s no grand conspiracy. There is no reason why you have to insult them, harass them.”

Luzerne County elections officials are by no means alone in their experiences. From Arizona to Nevada to North Carolina, these election showrunners have had to adjust to the new political climate brought about by election denialism, bringing in additional law enforcement and deploying barricades and drones to secure ballot-counting operations.

And some of the regions experiencing the most scrutiny nationwide this election cycle look a lot like Luzerne: swing state counties with shifting demographic and voting patterns.

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Located in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains, Luzerne County and its more than 325,000 residents embody this dynamic. Once dominant in anthracite coal production, the county saw a decrease in population as the country shifted to oil and gas and the coal industry declined. Though the county remains majority white, cities like Hazleton have seen a boon from immigration with 62% of residents reporting to be Latino. The county had swung blue for 20 years in presidential contests until Trump shook up the Republican Party. After years of the GOP making gains in the county, Republican voter registrations this year outnumbered Democratic registration by an 83-person advantage — though registration tends to be a lagging indicator of how people vote.

The changing voting patterns of the county and the tenor of right-leaning activists seeking to sow doubt in the election process means any human error gets magnified and used as proof of voter suppression, though it’s often more a sign of a stressed voting system running on antiquated regulations that relies on overworked staffers.

Take Crocamo and the Luzerne elections bureau, a staff of about 20 county employees. The group is tasked with doing the day-to-day prep work required for the election, including processing voter registrations, certifying poll watchers, prepping poll books, setting up voting machines, readying election judge packets, and processing the mail-in ballots.

The metaphoric plates spin in tandem and sometimes with deadlines — like the ones set for voter registration and requesting mail-in ballots — and in cooperation with other entities like Dominion Voting Systems, which supplies the machines and creates the ballots.

Crocamo said the “probability of an error increases” with so many moving parts, like the misspelling of a Republican candidate’s name that required 6,700 mail ballots to be reissued. An investigation determined the issue was vendor error. Crocamo said the misspelling was identified and resolved within 24 hours.

Before a single ballot was cast, the bureau and the Board of Elections, a five-member civilian volunteer board tasked with certifying the results of the vote, have dealt with characters who’ve sowed distrust in the system’s ability to keep undocumented immigrants from voting and its ability to process voter registrations and mail ballot applications, which 27% of registered voters requested, in a timely manner.

Election board meetings have become opportunities for people to air grievances over these concerns, with the internet serving as a hub for independent civilian investigations into alleged voter fraud. Figures with large social media footprints like billionaire Elon Musk — who has used his platform X to amplify misinformation and cast doubt on election integrity in Pennsylvania — have weighed in on Luzerne County election operations. On a quest to deliver the state for Trump, Musk has posted about Luzerne County drop boxes saying “they make fraud impossible to prove.”

Scott Presler, a MAGA influencer and GOP voter registration activist, is another one of these voices. The Virginia native leads Early Vote Action, an organization that is determined to deliver the state to Trump this election and has been particularly active in purple Bucks County.

Registered to vote in Beaver County, Presler has been a looming figure in Luzerne County, too, a persistent presence at Luzerne County Board of Elections meetings, demanding officials guarantee no undocumented immigrants are on voter rolls and threatening to sue the county, election bureau, and board for not processing voter registrations fast enough. (A State House candidate filed the suit instead.)

Presler’s remarks often point to the 2022 paper shortage and a 2020 incident in the county, where nine military absentee ballots were found in a Dumpster, as examples of disenfranchisement, which he reiterated in a brief call with The Inquirer last week. The 2022 ballot paper shortage led to a federal lawsuit in which two voters said they were not able to vote as a result of the chaos caused by the incident. That suit was settled in October with many of the agreed-upon changes, such as additional worker training, already in place.

A federal investigation confirmed the several discarded ballots in 2020 was an accident, and attributed the mistake to a poorly trained worker from a program that hires people with mental disabilities.

“This board has a history of not making sure that every lawful vote is counted here in Luzerne County,” said Presler in an October election board meeting. “That’s why you’re in the news.”

Presler has kept a keen eye on this year’s election operations. Late last month, he posted on X about a close-to-the-wire drop off of voter registration applications Crocamo mentioned during an election board meeting. Presler demanded an investigation. District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce, a Republican, said he found none of the 20 to 30 applications in question had been found fraudulent.

Though Presler has slammed Democratic policies during at least one election board meeting and is an outspoken Trump supporter, he insisted Friday that his interest in Luzerne County is “neither left nor right,” but rather neutral because no one should be disenfranchised.

Still, the pressure comes from all sides. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania sued the county and Crocamo when she announced she would eliminate the use of four drop boxes for mail ballots for the 2024 general election, citing a lack of staff to monitor them. Crocamo eventually reversed course.

Crocamo understands the frustration people may have about the time it takes for mail voting “on demand,” Pennsylvania’s version of early voting at satellite offices, and a process that has come under scrutiny for long wait times in Bucks County.

In Luzerne County, workers have three ballot printers. When one broke down, a staffer had to make the almost two-hour drive to Harrisburg to get a replacement. (The printers are connected to the state system, so going to Staples is not an option, said Crocamo.) The way the system is currently set up is time-consuming. The ballots take time to print, as does verifying a person’s identity. Some have argued the legislature could ease some of these logistical hurdles by adopting actual early voting like other states as well as letting counties process mail-in ballots before Election Day, the way most other states do.

“The legislature has to do their job and amend the election code, which is antiquated, and really put specific rules in place,” she said. “Unfortunately, it falls on the courts and the Department of State to try to navigate all this.”

Richard Morelli, one of the two Republican members of the election board, said he is confident in the process set up by election officials but he is bracing himself for a busy Tuesday, based on the in-person turnout for mail voting on demand.

“I think it’s going to be hectic, I think it’s going to be crowded,” he said. “I mean, people were waiting two hours to vote early and that just tells me people are very adamant about voting.”

He’s not expecting results until 11 p.m. at the earliest, though he’s also bracing himself for “lawsuits no matter what,” which will likely delay getting the final count.

The tenor of the election has led Crocamo to implement a series of physical safety measures for her staff and Election Day workers. After staffers reported being harassed by a cohort of election deniers, Crocamo had a bulletproof wall installed in the Bureau of Elections office in Wilkes-Barre. Because the building was erected after the 1972 Susquehanna River flood, it sits on pillars, which isn’t ideal for safety. Boulders were installed as a barrier at the start of October, should anyone try to ram a vehicle into the building. Employees in the building have special vests and lanyards to distinguish them from visitors and a special ballistic-resistant film has been placed in the lobby so that people can see out but no one can see in.

Poll workers have been instructed to install special “panic button” software on their phones, should they feel unsafe as they try to facilitate the election on Tuesday. For the first time ever, the county also has a livestream of the room where mail-in ballots are stored. It’s yet another way to reassure residents that the ballots are being safely managed.

Crocamo will have federal backup, too. The Justice Department will monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws.

As Election Day arrives, Crocamo has one final message to voters, a refrain she’s repeated countless times.

“The system is fair and free and we’re doing everything that we can to make it safe,” she said. “If you’re a registered voter, you should vote and be assured that your vote is private and confidential. No one has the right to see your vote, how you vote.”