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Luzerne County switches back to paper ballots for primary election

Bags of voting materials waited outside the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections office the week before the Pennsylvania primary election.
Sarah Scinto
/
WVIA News
Bags of voting materials waited outside the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections office the week before the Pennsylvania primary election.

Eryn Harvey, Luzerne County’s new Director of Elections, is hoping switching back to paper ballots will help the primary election run smoothly.

“I think we’re better prepared this time,” Harvey said.

Previously, voters in the county made their selections on electronic machines which printed a ballot to be scanned. In the 2022 general election, polling places throughout Luzerne County ran out of paper for those printers.

“My thought with the paper ballots was they’re already pre-printed, there’s one ballot for every voter,” Harvey said. “So, this way, there won’t be a paper issue.”

Voters will receive a paper ballot and go behind a privacy screen to fill out their selections. Then they’ll feed the ballot into a scanner to be counted.

“The only thing is, since we’re doing paper, just making sure that everybody fills in the bubble next to the candidate’s name,” Harvey said. “Especially if they’re going to do a write-in.”

Harvey says the county is getting away from paper poll books though - poll workers will have electronic poll books for the primary. If a voter shows up to the wrong polling location, the electronic books will help poll workers look up where that voter should go.

Registered voters throughout the state can also check their polling location at pavoterservices.pa.gov.

Polls will be open across Pennsylvania on Tuesday, May 16, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Sarah Scinto is the local host of Morning Edition on WVIA. She is a Connecticut native and graduate of King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, and has previously covered Northeastern Pennsylvania for The Scranton Times-Tribune, The Citizens’ Voice and Greater Pittston Progress.

You can email Sarah at sarahscinto@wvia.org