Allegheny County to offer in-person services to voters in run-up to November election

Unlike the last time the United States held a presidential election, election officials shouldn’t have to worry about COVID-19 disrupting the voting process this year. And citizens have had a few election cycles since then to get used to such novelties as mail-in ballots. But with another presidential election looming, Allegheny County workers aren’t just hoping things will work out on Election Day.

Instead, the county Board of Elections voted Monday to offer a range of in-person voting services in the days prior to Nov. 5. As board member Bethany Hallam put it shortly before approving the plan, the goal is “to remove all obstacles [for] people who want to vote,because … we want everybody to participate.”

While there was some debate about cost Tuesday, enhancing ballot access is “a noble investment,” said County Executive Sara Innamorato, who has sought to expand the services available to voters since she took office at the beginning of the year.

The county will offer two forms of in-person service before Election Day itself.

Beginning in mid-October, it will operate five staffed “satellite offices” where voters will be able to register to vote, request a mail-in ballot and immediately complete it right at the desk. Such services have long been available at the County Office Building, where election offices are housed.

And Allegheny County was one of a handful of Pennsylvania counties that offered similar options back in 2020, partly to offset the COVID-era risk of chaos on Election Day itself, when the number of polling places was drastically curtailed.

Though no such disruptions are expected this year, the county will offer four more satellite offices this year.

The first such office will operate Oct. 15-17 at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Oakland — a site located in the heart of Pittsburgh’s university district and readily accessible to college students. Other locations will open afterward in North and South Park as well as at CCAC’s Homewood campus.

As Election Day nears, the county will also offer nine additional drop-off locations, similar to those it provided for the spring primary. These will be staffed locations for voters to hand over their completed mail-in ballots to election staff, bypassing concerns about ballots being lost in the mail or arriving after polls close. (The ballots themselves will be transported with a police escort to the elections warehouse on the city’s North Side, where they are stored securely.)

The sites will be scattered in various parts of the county; voters can also use the County Office Building Downtown for that purpose. They will be open for the seven days before Election Day itself, including the Nov. 2-3 weekend.

Slightly less than 2,800 voters used those sites in the spring, which prompted Board of Elections member Sam DeMarco to ask whether the approach was cost-effective. DeMarco said the county spent nearly $325,000 to operate the centers, and while some of that cost involved camera equipment that could be reused at no additional cost, the per-ballot cost of nearly $117 was “not a great return on investment," he said.

County administrative services director Jessica Garafolo said the county would see some savings this fall as higher-paid supervisors, including herself, would likely spend less time on site.

In any case, Innamorato said, “We’re talking about ensuring that every single citizen here has the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. We’re creating an infrastructure that is new, that will require time for people to adopt. … It’s an investment not only in the folks who are going to be voting in November but the voters that are going to come after that.”

DeMarco himself voted along with Hallam and Innamorato to operate the drop-off locations, but he drew the line at the more full-service satellite offices. Cost was one of his concerns, he said: Citing declines in commercial real estate values, he warned ”We’re going to lose additional millions in real estate revenue when we’re taking and doing this.”

But DeMarco, who also chairs the Republican Committee of Allegheny County, said the satellite offices could stoke more concern about election fraud. “I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time trying to assure the people of Allegheny County … that our elections are secure,” he said.

“But when we … introduce things that can create additional ambiguity, it’s concerning.

“I have people calling me [and] telling me that this is nothing more than a Democrat ‘get out the vote’ plan funded by the taxpayers,” he said.

DeMarco pointed to Oakland in particular. Younger voters tend to skew Democratic, and while DeMarco didn’t raise a partisan concern, he said students “are the most technologically astute and capable of our population,” and do not need special assistance.

Hallam didn’t address such concerns head-on, but she praised “these additional measures to remove all obstacles [for] people who want to vote because, as we all agree, our elections are safe and secure and we want everybody to participate.”

Innamorato, too, bypassed DeMarco’s objections, asking Garofalo for a brief recitation of election security procedures and then voicing the “tremendous amount of respect and trust I have for our elections employees.’

With DeMarco’s “no” vote, the board passed the satellite location proposal by a 2-to-1 margin.

According to the county, the satellite offices and drop-off sites will operate at the following locations:

Satellite Offices

In addition to the County Office Building at 542 Forbes Ave., Downtown, Oakland’s Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall Auditorium will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Oct. 15-17.

The following locations will be available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 19-20 and Oct. 26-27.

Community College of Allegheny County-Homewood, 701 N. Homewood Ave., Pittsburgh 15208

North Park Ice Rink, 1200 Pearce Mill Road, Wexford 15090

South Park Ice Rink, 30 Corrigan Drive, Bethel Park 15102

Ballot Return Sites

In addition to the County Office Building, the following sites will accept mail-in ballots from voters only between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Oct. 29 through Nov. 1, and again on Nov. 4. They will also be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 2-3.

Allegheny County Emergency Services Building, 150 Hookstown Grade Road, Coraopolis, 15108

Boyce Park Four Seasons Lodge, 901 Centerview Drive, Plum 15239

Carnegie Public Library–Squirrel Hill, 5801 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh 15217

North Park Ice Rink, 1200 Pearce Mill Road, Wexford 15090

South Park Ice Rink, 30 Corrigan Drive, Bethel Park 15102

Dormont Pool, 1801 Dormont Ave., Pittsburgh 15216

Community College of Allegheny County-Homewood, 701 N. Homewood Ave., Pittsburgh 15208

Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, 1 N. Linden Street, Duquesne 15110

Avalon Public Library, 317 S. Home Ave., Pittsburgh 15202.