Allegheny County leaders plan to discuss the use of ballot drop-off locations, which were deployed in the lead-up to the April primary election, at a Board of Elections meeting next week. But most officials say they want more information before they decide if the new sites should return for future elections.
After some controversy, the elections board voted last month to approve six staffed locations across the county where voters could hand in their completed mail-in or absentee ballots directly to a county employee. Those were in addition to a drop-off site at the downtown County Office Building, which has operated for the past few years.
Nearly 2,800 people utilized the seven return sites over the course of two weekends — a small fraction of the roughly 90,400 mail-in and absentee ballots returned in total. (When election day ballots are factored in, over 245,000 votes were cast in all last month.)
The East End drop-off location, which was operated at the Carnegie Public Library of Squirrel Hill, saw the most use: 893 voters returned their ballots at the site. Five other sites also saw triple-digit turnouts, but only 98 returns were brought to the Kane Community Living Center in McKeesport.
The return sites were a particularly welcome addition for some members of the county’s Jewish community, as the April 23 primary fell on the first day of Passover. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh launched a campaign to ensure people were aware of the date conflict, and of the various ways they could cast their ballots.
Laura Cherner, the group’s director of community relations, said the Squirrel Hill location was a needed access point for observant and Orthodox Jews, many of whom reside in Squirrel Hill and nearby neighborhoods.
“Mail-in voting has been a trusted source of voting in Pennsylvania for years, and the addition of other drop-off locations gave Jewish voters the option of voting in person, in a certain sense,” said Cherner, who added that she hopes similar date conflicts don’t happen in the future.
“I think [it] was important for some voters to be able to physically drop off their ballots, and with the convenience of it being in Squirrel Hill as opposed to having it having to go downtown,” she said.
Board of Elections member Bethany Hallam has been a vocal supporter of expanding voting methods, and said that in the future, she would like to see more ballot drop-off sites and even satellite voting locations, which offer other voter services as well. (Such sites were used at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.) Hallam acknowledged that this year’s primary was a low-turnout election, and fewer people used the sites than she would have liked. But she said an analysis of voter data could help the county place future drop-off locations in places where they’ll be more widely used.
“I hope that we will be utilizing opportunities to talk about these options more in advance of the next election, so that we can just have a system going forward that we treat every election as if it's the most important election of our lifetimes,” Hallam said.
Sam DeMarco, the only Republican on the three-member election board, said the new locations operated smoothly and he doesn’t “look at what we did here negatively in any way.” But he said he’d like to see more discussion about the sites before they’re implemented again.
“Like anything else that we do, we’ll look at the facts, we’ll do an analysis, cost-benefit ratio and cost-benefit analysis,” he said. “I have not made any decisions whatsoever, one way or the other in regards to this or for the fall.”
According to figures provided by County Executive Sara Innamorato’s office, it cost the county about $62,200 to staff the six new sites, each of which had election workers and a county police officer on duty. (That figure does not include the cost of the County Office Building location, which is regularly staffed regardless.)
Innamorato spokesperson Abigail Gardner said the Elections Division is “assessing the data from this election and past to determine proposals for future ballot return sites.
“We are hoping to balance cost, security, and utilization of ballot return sites to improve accessibility to voting in a way that efficiently uses County staff and resources,” she said. “We will engage the Board of Elections and have a process for public input this summer, before any final decisions are made about November’s ballot return sites.”
The Board of Elections will meet on May 13 at 10 a.m. to certify the primary election results. Those who would like to make a public comment can sign up by emailing BOE@alleghenycounty.us by 10 a.m. on May 12 with their name, address and planned remarks.
