Oct 18, 2013 4 min read

What if the 1,263 registered voters in Canonsburg’s First Ward, fourth precinct, showed up at their polling place at the First Street Elementary School Nov. 5 and found no way to vote?

For the past several years, Washington County Elections Director Larry Spahr had trouble finding enough people to man local election boards.

Not only is Canonsburg 1-4 lacking an election board, but that’s the case in Washington 5-1, Trinity Episcopal Church; Long Branch Borough; and East Finley 1, Roadside Chapel, where there is, so far, just one person willing to serve.

If no election board members can be found within a precinct, they should reside in the same municipality, but this isn’t always attainable either.

A full complement includes a judge of elections, two inspectors and two clerks although, in some of the county’s 184 precincts, Spahr said the board has to get by with just four members.

It’s a paying position, albeit for a long work day. Election board members earn about $100 for working a full shift, which lasts from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The person returning voting machines and memory cards to Washington earns an additional $20, plus mileage for the trip, from the polling place.

Spahr asked those interested in serving on election boards to call him at 724-228-6750 or, in the case of Long Branch, to call Mayor Joseph DeBlassio at the borough office, 724-483-5950.

“Part of the problem is economic for the younger folks,” Spahr said. “A lot of folks are working today. Not that they’re unwilling to serve. It’s that they can’t afford to. Senior citizens who have worked these boards for a number of years, their health doesn’t allow them.”

In the low-tech days of paper ballots and punch cards, someone could work on a local election board with little or no training, but Spahr said the lack of personnel didn’t start with the advent of touchscreen voting machines in Washington County in 2006.

Without changes, Spahr said lack of election boards could jeopardize the electoral process.

He said legislative changes in the state election code are the only way to remedy the problem. “Somehow, these boards have got to be stabilized. It’s got to be done,” Spahr said. “You’ve got to have precinct boards to administer the election at the local level.”

Voting via the Internet could spell the end of going to a polling place, but Spahr, who attended a seminar at Carnegie Mellon University on the topic, said the problem that has yet to be worked out is one of security: preserving the secrecy of the ballot while making sure that one registered voter casts only one ballot.

“Until that day comes, we have to suffer through,” Spahr said. “Almost getting down on your knees and begging people to work. If it weren’t for people from outside the precincts, you could not have election boards.

“Come next week, we’re going to start to hit critical mass on this issue. We have to train the rookies in the use of the electronic poll book and the touch-screen voting machines.”

Some polling places have changed since the last election. Voters in Cecil 1 will be heading back to the Iceoplex instead of the Hendersonville Shops. Elco voters should report to the civic center instead of the nearby municipal building.

And depending on the outcome of a vote Monday night, voters in Monongahela’s Second Ward, third precinct, may be casting their ballots at the Elks Lodge No. 455, 444 Jackson St., rather than the Hilltop Bar. Members of the club’s board of directors must decide whether to allow the county to use their building as a polling place.

“We can’t continue to use the bar,” Spahr said, saying that the owners notified the county in June that it would no longer be available as a polling place. “In Monongahela 2-3, there are a limited number of places. That’s why we used the bar.”

Although the Elks Lodge also has a bar, just as at the Hilltop, voting must take place in a room separate from the bar room.

For those who will be unable to vote in the Nov. 5 election, two deadlines loom. Civilian absentee ballot applications must be received by the elections office by 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 29, and the last to return a completed ballot to the elections office is Friday, Nov. 1.