Under national scrutiny over a paper ‘shortage,’ Luzerne County’s poll workers worked overtime to ensure people could vote

Poll workers stationed at the Germania Hose Company noticed the problem shortly after the polls opened at 7 a.m.

The voting machines at their Luzerne County firehouse polling location had only a handful of pages of special cardstock-like ballot paper in their printing trays. The machines hadn’t been properly stocked. As the morning hours passed, dozens of the county’s more than 180 polling locations began to encounter the same problem — one out of every five machines, per one county official.

“It was a nightmare,” said Mary Russo, the elections judge at the Germania Hose Company in Duryea Borough. The calm, soft-spoken elections judge runs a tight ship and feared that people might be discouraged from voting.

She got to work to ensure voters could cast their ballots. Some poll workers said they initially struggled getting through to the Luzerne County Election Bureau, so they started text chains with other nearby polling stations asking if they had paper to spare.

The paper shortage drew national attention to the closely watched bellwether county, and some skeptics used the issue to question the integrity of the election. But Luzerne County poll workers kept calm, sought out more paper, and helped voters cast their ballots.

According to Luzerne County Councilmember Tim McGinley, there was no reserve of ballot paper in the bureau’s possession. Paper had to be procured from neighboring Lackawanna County and Albany, N.Y.

The paper is essential to voting in Luzerne, where voters mark their choices on touchscreen machines. The ballots are printed and then scanned into separate machines. Without the paper, voters had to fill provisional ballots and that takes longer to set up, said poll workers. The most efficient fix was to get more paper.

Dave Bronsbury was working for a company conducting exit polls in Duryea, but when he heard of the paper shortage he made the 20-minute drive to Wilkes-Barre to get two boxes that came with 2,000 sheets of paper each.

“It was kind of fun,” he said of helping the poll workers who had to stay put. “Felt like I did something.”

At Hazleton City Hall, Norman Tarantino — in his sixth year as an elections judge — had only one machine without paper, but lines were able to keep moving on the remaining three machines.

But as the morning stretched into the early afternoon, the messages continued. The elections bureau told poll workers more paper was on its way, but it was unclear just how many polling places needed a restock or when more paper would arrive.

“I had paper at my house,” Tarantino remembered thinking. “I was like, should I get it?”

It wasn’t lost on poll workers across Luzerne County that they were in the national spotlight. Historically a reliably blue vote, the county has seen political shifts with former President Donald Trump winning the county twice. The county could be a bellwether for the rest of the country and the 2024 presidential race, according to pundits. As of Wednesday, results showed that the county split its votes in statewide races, with Republican Mehmet Oz winning the majority of Senate votes while Democrat Josh Shapiro had the most votes in the governor’s race.

What’s more, reports of the logistical error began to spread on social media, with some using the issue to cast doubt on the integrity of the elections — a sentiment poll workers on the ground pushed back on.

“We resorted to do what we had to do to get everyone’s votes in the right way,” said poll worker Donna Kocher, who was stationed out of the Lake Township Municipal Building. That location never ran out of paper despite being low, and they simply went to the store to get “regular printer paper.”

Silvia Edwards, a first-time judge of elections stationed at the Dorrance Township Municipal Building, said most of the day went without a hitch. There was only a short period of stress when voters waited 20 minutes to fill out emergency ballots while workers waited for more paper.

“Most of the people understand and they didn’t wait too long,” she said, adding she’d do the job again.

By Tuesday afternoon, Common Pleas Court Judge Lesa S. Gelb granted a request from the Luzerne County Election Bureau to push back the time the polls closed across the county — a move both the Democratic and Republican Parties supported.

“Voters in Luzerne County, through no fault of their own, were disenfranchised and denied the fundamental right to vote,” wrote Gelb in her order, explaining the extension was granted “in an effort to protect and maintain the integrity of the 2022 General Election and to protect the voters of this county.”

In an amendment to the order early evening, Gelb ordered any voter coming in after 8 p.m. to cast provisional ballots.

Polls were ordered to stay open until 10 p.m., making national headlines and drawing attention to an elections bureau that’s seen significant turnover in management since 2019, prompting concerns from elections workers.

The bureau did not return requests for comment, nor did County Manager Randy Robertson, who oversees the election director.

It’s unclear how many people voted using provisional ballots because of the paper shortage or how long it took to solve the problem countywide.

Members of the Luzerne County Council expect to continue discussing the issue with elections officials.

“They have to come back with some answers, there has to be accountability here,” said McGinley, still murky on how long the problem took to remedy. “Whatever you want to call it — inquiry, discussion, whatever — but that has to be done to make sure there are steps in place to make sure something like this would never happen again.”

Staff writers Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this article.