Furious Voters in Lancaster County are want answers from the US Postal Service after their votes were sent by mail and arrived at the county elections office after the deadline.
After two arduous weeks, Harrisburg’s mail-in votes, which were stamped on October 30th, eventually arrived at the county elections office!
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Votes disposed of as they came in after the deadline of November 7th at 8 p.m.
“Lancaster County officials said they had not yet totaled the number of affected ballots as of Friday, but they confirmed this week that roughly 100 to 150 mail-in ballots with an Oct. 30 Harrisburg postmark did not reach the county elections office until Nov. 13, six days after the deadline,” LancasterOnline reports.
According to LancasterOnline:
Questions concerning the delayed ballots, including why they weren’t delivered for two weeks, were not addressed by a regional USPS representative. “We are reviewing the processes involved and seeking ways to improve our service,” a USPS spokesman Mark Lawrence wrote in an email.
Four voters who received automated messages alerting them that their ballots had been rejected because of delayed delivery were interviewed by LNP | LancasterOnline. After the Election Day deadline, on or around November 14th, the communications were received.
Three voters complained that their votes were ignored to LNP | LancasterOnline.
On Election Day, East Hempfield Township voter Don Stollenwerk was forced to cast a provisional ballot as he had not received confirmation that his ballot had been received. Fortunately, he learned later that the Department of State had in fact tallied his provisional ballot.
Voters who are frustrated When Suzanne Wood and Tana Reiff tried to acquire an explanation for their problems, USPS staff shuffled them around and ignored them.
The head of the Lancaster County Democratic Committee, Tom O’Brien, stated on Friday that he was unaware of the issue but that he would investigate. “I will tell you that I’m going to inquire about it, probably the first thing Monday morning,” he said.
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“Today we have contacted the US Postal Service, and are in the process of filing a request with US Postal inspectors to determine the cause of mail-in ballots being delayed to be returned in a timely manner to Lancaster County Board of Elections,” This week, Tom O’Brien stated in a news statement.
“Between 100 and 150 ballots that were postmarked in Harrisburg on October 30 did not arrive at the Board of Elections until nearly a week after Election Day, and thus had to be tossed out,” he added.
Continued from LancasterOnline:
A significant problem for clients in south-central Pennsylvania and Lancaster County has been delivery delays. The postal service blames a staffing shortage for these delays.
To guarantee that mail-in ballots don’t have to go all the way to Harrisburg, county authorities streamlined the process by partnering with the downtown Lancaster Post Office.
According to county authorities, postal workers have been redirecting mail-in votes throughout recent elections, either sending them straight to the elections office or putting them aside for county employees to pick up.
On West Chestnut Street, these two institutions are situated directly next to one another.
“We go over once a day and make sure on the day of the election we get everything that’s there because they close at 5 p.m.,” stated Commissioner John Trescot, the board of elections’ departing chair. “And they make sure when stuff comes in it doesn’t go to Harrisburg and back if it comes to that office.”
It was confusing since the rejection notes said, on July 18, that four voters’ mail-in ballots had been received, even though the county officials had just mailed out mail-in ballots for the November election ten weeks earlier.
Would 150 or 200 uncounted make a significant change in election outcome?