WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — After weeks on the bench, Luzerne County’s ballot drop boxes are in play.
County Manager Romilda Crocamo, warned by the state attorney general that she could face civil or criminal penalties for barring ballot drop boxes, reversed course late Friday and said the county may move forward with their use.
It was not clear Saturday how soon the county’s four drop boxes could be deployed. The Board of Elections and Registration is next scheduled to meet Wednesday. Their meeting agenda was not available Saturday afternoon.
Crocamo’s reversal came in an email sent Friday night to county council, roughly 2½ weeks after she first told election officials that the government will not make use of drop boxes because of financial and security concerns.
In her email Friday, she told council she still has “grave concerns about the safety of the drop boxes in this present political climate.” However, she will not oppose their use.
“We are planning to deploy all (four),” Crocamo emailed Saturday.
The about-face, Crocamo wrote, was in response to correspondence from Michelle Henry, the state’s attorney general, who said only the county election board can give instructions on the use of drop boxes. The state’s top cop told Crocamo she could be held civilly or criminally responsible for not working with them.
That question of who has authority over drop boxes — board or manager — was at the heart of a hearing scheduled Monday in the county’s Court of Common Pleas.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, nonprofit In This Together NEPA and three Luzerne County voters filed a lawsuit last week seeking a court order that Crocamo honor the will of the board, which last took a vote on drop boxes in February. That vote was a motion to get rid of the drop boxes. It died 3-2.
The board, in a brief, argued that Crocamo cannot override their decision. Her conduct is “inconsistent” with the state’s Election Code, an attorney representing the board said. Her decision did not involve the scrutiny and public consultation that occurs with the board.
“The Election Code, by its nature and structure, prohibits such one-person rule with regard to the conduct of elections,” wrote the board’s attorney, Joseph Cosgrove. “The menace such a mechanism would create is self-evident.”
Cosgrove declined to comment Saturday.
Crocamo, in return, argued that her position grants authority to supervise and direct county employees. The lawsuit ignores the “straightforward reality that the Luzerne County Board of Elections and Registration has neither funding, manpower, nor capacity to implement its ballot drop boxes.”
Crocamo’s attorney, Mark Cedrone, said her reversal makes Monday’s court hearing unnecessary. He said Saturday he was reaching out to the opposing attorneys to see what matters remain unresolved.
Attempts to reach the attorneys for the ACLU and a representative of In This Together NEPA were unsuccessful.
In an affidavit Crocamo filed in the lawsuit, she wrote she would work with the board “provided…it provides detailed and reasonable attainable security measures” alongside its directives to deploy drop boxes.
“She does not concede the board has power that exceeds her executive authority,” Cedrone said Saturday. “She is simply abiding the Attorney General’s advice to cooperate with the Board on this very narrow issue.”
Drop box security concerns are a regular refrain at public meetings by those claiming they are ripe for abuse and potential fraud.
Voting rights groups, including the ACLU, have said there’s been no substantiated case of abuse or fraud regarding drop boxes.
In Crocamo’s affidavit, she cited security concerns that centered on partisan extremists, general worries about international actors and the current “security posture” of the county’s elections facilities as reasons to ditch drop boxes.
She also cited posts from some social media users who promote the “destruction of ballot drop boxes.” More detailed information regarding her concerns were filed confidentially because of their nature.
“I concluded that Luzerne County cannot safely deploy the drop boxes as requested by the Board without incurring unreasonable cost and stretching already thin County manpower resources beyond the breaking point,” Crocamo wrote, adding money awarded to the county through an Election Integrity Grant was insufficient to underwrite security requirements.
In her brief, her attorneys wrote the county received $370,882.37 from the grant — “not an endless source of funding,” they said.
However, according to their attached exhibits, that amount was awarded to Lycoming County, which was just below Luzerne County on a list of municipalities given funds. Luzerne County actually received $1,036,168.05, according to the list of awards.
In The ACLU’s filing, they cited examples of voters who said they need drop boxes to ensure that their ballots are received without the risk of delay or loss by the U.S. Postal Service.
And the court, the organization said, needed to quickly decide because the issuance of mail-in ballots was imminent.
Emily Cook, the county’s elections director, said that roughly 32,000 mail ballots began going out to voters Friday.
She did not have on hand a breakdown of how many requested them by party. Historically, voters who cast their votes by mail have tended to favor Democrats.
Democratic mail-in ballots outnumbered Republican mail-in ballots nearly 2-to-1 in Luzerne County in 2020, according to the county's data, even though former President Donald Trump captured the county by more than 20,000 votes.
Attempts to reach county Republican Party officials for comment were unsuccessful Saturday.
Thomas Shubilla, chair of the Luzerne County Democratic Party, applauded the turn of events.
“The more options a person has to vote, whether it is in-person on election day, early at the board of elections, sending your ballot via mail, or utilizing one of the drop box locations, the better it is for our democracy,” Shubilla said.