Battleground PA: Luzerne County bans ballot drop boxes, citing security concerns

by WorldTribune Staff, September 20, 2024 Contract With Our Readers

Luzerne County, Pennsylvania has banned ballot drop boxes for the November election.

County officials cited security and safety concerns in making the decision.

“We cannot, meaning the county, secure those drop boxes,” Luzerne County Manager Romilda Crocamo said.

Crocamo said each of the county’s four ballot drop boxes had security cameras on sight, but the cameras were not reliable.

“If doors are open and people have 24-hour access and there’s no one there a lot can happen and a lot has been happening,” Crocamo added.

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Guarding the drop boxes would include two sheriffs deputies who would be at each location to retrieve the ballots, which was too costly for the county, Crocamo said.

Crocamo is encouraging voters to drop off their ballots directly at the county Election Bureau, where workers can monitor them.

County officials noted that, during the 2022 midterms, an individual was caught stuffing four ballots into one of the drop boxes and would likely not have been seen doing so if not for officials who were on the scene collecting ballots at the time.

Other Pennsylvania counties have implemented safeguards for mail-in ballot drop boxes ahead of November.

In Bucks County, “each drop box is located within a government building,” which means the “boxes are only accessible during the hours the government building is open,” as Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Josh Findlay explained. In addition, “drop boxes are monitored by both county observers and video surveillance.” The drop boxes also contain clear signage that has instructions for voters.

“Ballot drop boxes are notoriously insecure, with a judge overturning a race in Connecticut after alleged mail-in ballot fraud,” The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman reported on Friday. “During the September 2023 primary, Democrat Joe Ganim was losing to John Gomes by hundreds of votes after in-person voting but ended up winning after a flood of absentee votes came in. Surveillance footage appeared to show that two city employees (Democrats affiliated with Ganim) stuffed ballot drop boxes. Under state law, a voter ‘must personally mail or personally return the ballot for it to be counted’ with limited exceptions. Ganim later won the do-over race as well.”

Lyman added: “During the 2020 election, key swing states saw an influx of grants from left-wing donors and organizations. Some of that money went toward the installation of unsecured ballot drop boxes, like in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that ‘Milwaukee installed 15 unstaffed ballot drop boxes’ in 2020 with money it received from the Center for Tech & Civic Life (CTCL).”

Joe Biden reportedly won the state in 2020 by roughly 20,000 votes.

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