Elections officials gearing up for Nov. 8 midterms
The midterm elections are exactly one month away and area elections offices are a beehive of activity preparing last-minute registrations and sending out mail-in ballots to voters.
Washington County Elections Director Melanie Ostrander said they began sending out mail-in and absentee ballots Monday and have received 16,315 applications so far ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
It’s well below the 42,000 mail-in ballots requested in Washington County during the 2020 presidential election when COVID-19 was raging, but it still indicates a high interest in the upcoming election, Ostrander said. She expects more requests will be coming over the next few weeks with the Nov. 1 deadline to apply for mail-in ballots, although Ostrander suggested people submit their applications sooner rather than later.
“It’s not where I thought it would be,” Ostrander said of the number of mail-in ballot requests they’ve received. “I think it’s because of COVID why the presidential had such a high turnout for mail-ins for us. … My fear is with 30 days out, they’re just going to drop (a lot of mail-in ballot applications) on us.”
While the roster for poll workers is strong in Washington County, she said they’re always looking for extra people willing to participate to help them out in a pinch. Ostrander suggested people who are interested in working the polls to call their office at 724-228-6750. The new Washington County elections office is now located on the ground floor of the Crossroads Center building at 95 W. Beau St., Suite 010, in Washington.
Poll workers must be residents of the county in the precincts where they’re stationed.
“There’s more interest in (working) this election than there has been in the past,” Ostrander said. “But we always have a need for poll workers, especially to fill spots in case of last-minute emergencies.”
Meanwhile, the Washington County Elections Office has received numerous open records requests from various people across the state searching for information about the 2020 election. Ostrander said some of the requests include information on “cast vote records” showing scanned copies of ballots, but the state has already asserted those are not public records because they are considered contents of the ballot box, which are private.
“We have been receiving requests for ‘Right-To-Knows’, but we have not been receiving them at the volume counties in the eastern part of the state have,” Ostrander said. “We have been receiving the same requests, just in less volume.”
Greene County Elections Director Judy Snyder said they’ve received five such requests so far asking for similar information, which are now under review by the county’s solicitor.
Snyder said the county began sending out mail-in ballots Sept. 30 and has received 2,187 applications as of Thursday. There were 5,000 such requests in 2020.
The county is still open to hiring poll workers, and there are training sessions this week. The elections office is also looking to hire people who will be able to open and count mail-in ballots on Election Day, as required by the state’s new Act 88 that offers funds to help counties with manpower under the caveat that the canvassing process begins immediately.
“We are always in need of poll workers who are willing to work at locations that may be out of their voting precinct,” Snyder said. “Our Board of Elections are working on filling those (mail-in ballot canvassing) slots.”
Anyone interested in being a poll worker or canvassing mail-in ballots should contact the Greene County Elections Office at 724-852-5230.
Elections officials across the state are also reminding the public that Oct. 24 is the last day to register for the election or change information regarding a person’s voter registration. Mail-in ballots must be returned to their county’s elections office by 8 p.m. Nov. 8. A voter can only return his or her ballot, and not anyone else’s, according to state election laws.