Board of Elections makes precinct worker appointments for today
Apr. 23—For today's primary election, the Crawford County Board of Elections had to meet Monday to name a total of 108 appointees to serve in various poll worker capacities at 56 out of the county's 61 precincts.
The board had recessed its public meeting from last week until Monday afternoon to make last-minute appointments to ensure precincts were adequately staffed today for in-person voting.
The appointments made included naming a judge of elections for 22 of the 61 precincts due either to vacancies, resignation or the elected judge being unable to serve in today's election. The remaining 86 appointments were for majority inspector, minority inspector and clerical positions at the various precincts.
All the appointments were unanimous 2-0 votes with members Scott Schell and Eric Henry voting for the appointees. Christopher Seeley, the third member of the board, was absent from Monday's reconvened meeting.
Polls are open today from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. for in-person voting at precincts across the county and across Pennsylvania.
Those who vote by machine at their respective precincts will have their votes tallied after polls close at 8 p.m. Machine counts are made by poll workers at each precinct, with individual precinct results taken to the Election and Voter Services Office at the Crawford County Courthouse as well as posted at the respective precinct.
Any mail-in and absentee primary ballots must be received at the Election and Voter Services Office at the courthouse, 903 Diamond Park, Meadville, by 8 p.m. today in order to be counted.
The Board of Elections will conducts public pre-canvass and canvass of mail-in and absentee ballots in today's primary election starting at 7 a.m. today in the Assembly Room at the courthouse.
Last week, board members set the public pre-canvass, or opening of only the outer envelopes of the mail-in and absentee ballots, to begin at 7 a.m. today in the Assembly Room. Pre-canvass will continue as needed until 8 p.m. today.
The pre-canvass start and end time of 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. coincides with today's in-person voting at the 61 precincts around the county.
Canvassing, or counting of those mail-in and absentee votes by opening of the secrecy envelope containing the actual mail-in or absentee ballot, cannot start until 8 p.m. in the Assembly Room. The start of public canvassing coincides with the 8 p.m. closure of in-person voting at county precincts. Canvassing of the mail-in and absentee ballots will continue until completion.
In addition, the Board of Elections' tabulators and alternate tabulators of official results also were sworn in Monday. Official tabulation of the results from today's election won't begin until at least Friday.
Official tabulators sworn for the primary election are Board of Elections members Schell, Henry and Seeley. Alternates are Kelsey G. Zimmerman, Renee A. Kiser and Darien L. Kean, the county's three elected auditors; county employees Jennifer McCall, Marlo Urey, Samantha Travis and Gina Chatfield; and Christopher Soff, former county commissioner.
Keith Gushard can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.
