Feds: Trump votes discarded in Luzerne County
By JAMES HALPIN STAFF WRITER Sep 24, 2020 Updated 2 hrs ago Comments
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A federal investigation into irregularities with mail-in ballots at the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections turned up discarded ballots that were cast for President Donald Trump, U.S. Attorney David J. Freed said Thursday.
In a prepared statement, Freed said FBI agents and Pennsylvania State Police who began investigating “potential issues” with a small number of ballots earlier this week determined a small number of military ballots for the November general election had been discarded.
“Investigators have recovered nine ballots at this time,” Freed said. “Some of those ballots can be attributed to specific voters and some cannot.”
Freed detailed the investigation’s initial findings in a letter to county election director Shelby Watchilla.
“The FBI has recovered a number of documents relating to military ballots that had been improperly opened by your elections staff, and had the ballots removed and discarded, or removed and placed separately from the envelope containing confidential voter information and attestation,” Freed wrote.
That violated state election law, which stipulates that ballots should be securely stored, unopened, until 7 a.m. on election day, he wrote.
Most of the materials investigators recovered were found in an outside Dumpster, Freed wrote.
“The preliminary findings of this inquiry are troubling and the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections must comply with all applicable state and federal election laws and guidance to ensure that all votes — regardless of party — are counted to ensure an accurate election count,” he wrote. “Even though your staff has made some attempts to reconstitute certain of the improperly opened ballots, there is no guarantee that any of these votes will be counted in the general election.”
Investigators discovered that nearly all envelopes received in the election bureau were opened as a matter of course, Freed wrote.
Election workers told investigators that the envelopes used for overseas, military, absentee and mail-in ballots are so similar that staff members believed adhering to the protocol of preserving envelopes unopened would cause them to miss ballot requests, he wrote.
Also, interviews revealed the same problem happened in the June 2 primary and has not been corrected, Freed wrote.
“It is imperative that the issues identified be corrected,” he wrote.
During a media briefing on the White House’s south lawn Thursday afternoon, Trump cited the incident as evidence of his ongoing claim that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud.
“So we have to be very careful with the ballots. The ballots, that’s a whole big scam. They found, I understand, eight ballots in a wastepaper basket in some location,” Trump told reporters. “We want to make sure the election is honest and I’m not sure that it can be. I don’t know that it can be with this whole situation, unsolicited ballots. They’re unsolicited, millions being sent to everybody.”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, speaking to CNN host Pamela Brown on Thursday afternoon, offered a different take when asked if the finding in Luzerne County would undermine the public’s confidence in mail-in voting.
“I applaud Dave Freed for doing his job,” Shapiro said.
Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis’ office began investigating potential issues with some mail-in ballots that were received last week prior to consulting with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Federal authorities took the lead in the case at the request of Salavantis on Monday, although county detectives continued to assist.
Salavantis, a Republican, previously said she believed the issue would not impact the Nov. 3 election results.
“We are confident that it will be successfully resolved so it will not have an impact on the integrity of the election process,” Salavantis said earlier this week.
According to information county solicitor Romilda P. Crocamo released Thursday, the county sent out overseas military and civilian ballots beginning Aug. 25. No other mail-in ballots had been sent out as of Thursday.
The county plans to send out the general mail-in ballots the first week of October, after proofing and testing has been completed, Crocamo said.
County Manager David Pedri issued a statement thanking Salavantis and Freed for their professional work investigating the situation.
“The county will continue to work in cooperation with the authorities throughout their review,” Pedri said.
Contact the writer: jhalpin@citizensvoice.com
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James Halpin
James Halpin covers courts and crime. Read More…
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