A Republican Scranton voter and Lackawanna County have settled a federal lawsuit the voter filed because he never received a mail-in ballot in an election last year.
The county Bureau of Elections sent corrected mail-in ballots to 545 Republican voters for the May 20, 2025, primary election because the first batch listed candidates for the May 2024 primary election.
His lawsuit, filed Dec. 29, said Eugene Kopecki, 83, called the county Bureau of Elections to report the mistake. An official told him he would get a corrected ballot in the mail.
He never did, “leaving him unable to vote in the 2025 primary election,” according to the suit.
In all, 395 Scranton Republicans who received corrected mail-in ballots cast them in a primary election that included choices for the party nominee for Scranton mayor, the suit says.
The inadequacy of the county’s quality control policies and procedures and its failure to properly train staff to review mail-in ballots led to a violation of Kopecki’s right to vote under the U.S. Constitution, the suit said.
The settlement
There was no mention in the settlement of monetary compensation. Under the consent decree and order settling Kopecki’s suit, filed Monday, the county agreed to, within six months:
- Adopt a written manual establishing “a comprehensive set of election-related policies and procedures to guide all aspects of (the county’s) administration of elections.” The manual must include “instructions for drafting, designing, proofreading, printing and quality control of mail-in and absentee ballots.”
- Develop a comprehensive training program for all election workers on how to handle mail-in ballots.
- Require all newly hired election employees to attend specialized training on election laws, policies and procedures
The mistake
After discovering the mistake, county elections director Beth Hopkins blamed it on the printing company but was unsure why the error occurred.
Countywide, more than 12,000 voters of both parties were mailed ballots for the primary. Only the 545 Republican Scranton ballots were incorrect, and they were the only Scranton Republican mail-in ballots, she said. The printing of the Scranton ballots was held up by a challenge to one mayoral candidate’s ballot status. No other municipalities had a similar mistake.
“So, they were printed in a separate printing batch. So, I'm just not quite sure why the printer selected an old file instead of the current file,” she said then.
Policy manual in the works
Hopkins said Tuesday the county has begun working on the policy manual and plans to have it ready soon.
The county’s ballot printer, Election Systems & Software, acknowledged its error and apologized. Hopkins said she still can’t understand why the 2024 ballots still existed in ES&S' system but acknowledged the bureau should have checked the incorrect ballots before mailing them.
“We weren’t denying the fact that when the ballots came back, the person didn’t review the top of the ballot (where the date is),” she said. “Now, there’s a checklist in place.
“Everybody is working hard on rectifying it and we’re working hard on our manual and it will be a good thing.”
Where's the ballot?
Hopkins said she was unable to determine what happened to the corrected ballot mailed to Kopecki.
“It was not returned as undeliverable,” she said.
Caleb Hays, chief policy counsel for the Center for Election Confidence, which represented Kopecki, said he “couldn’t venture to guess” what happened to the ballot.
“I know certainly that the county intended for it to make it there, and that Mr. Kopecki was very earnest about it arriving, and for whatever reason it didn't end up there,” he said. “Outside of this particular situation, I think we're seeing, unfortunately, some bad developments at the postal service, the change in postmarking and delivery promise times, which has affected you know a lot of people.”
Hays said other Scranton Republicans did not receive corrected ballots — he could not immediately provide a number — but said it was a “decent” number.
“It wasn't just Mr. Kopecki,” he said. “I don't think this was done on purpose. I think that across the country, whenever we see issues happen with elections, by and large, an overwhelming amount of times, it's not intentional. Any system with humans involved is going to have some amount of human error, and I think that's what we saw here too.”
The lawsuit’s goal was “to help the county improve their processes,” he said.
“There's been a really collaborative process between Mr. Kopecki and the county in putting together a plan for some better procedures training and I think most importantly an election procedures manual to make sure that you know they don't end up in this situation again, Hays said.
Efforts to reach Kopecki were unsuccessful.
