WAYNE COUNTY, PA — Wayne County leaders gathered on Friday, April 10 for a roundtable on the topic of election security. From election-day planning to pre-election maintainance of the voter rolls to the mechanisms of mail-in ballots, speakers outlined all the processes that go into ensuring that elections run smoothly, safely and securely. 

The panel comprised Wayne County Bureau of Elections Director Amy Christopher, Wayne County Sheriff Chris Rosler and Bethany Borough Judge of Elections James Hutchison. The event was organized by Wayne Voices, a non-partisan group dedicated to promoting civic engagement and conversations. 

Speakers took questions from the audience on many potential topics of concern, from the possibility of non-eligible people casting votes to the potential impact of federal intervention in states’ voting systems. Speakers on the panel expressed confidence in the systems currently in place and the work currently being done to ensure safe and secure elections. 

“I can honestly say I don’t have any worries about elections in Wayne County,” Rosler said. 

Mail-in ballots

Much of the discussion centered on the topic of mail-in ballots. 

There’s a concern that people would be able to vote twice using both mail-in ballots and in-person voting. However, said Christopher, “there are many [mechanisms] in place that just don’t allow that to happen.”

Mail-in ballots received are recorded in the log books that are sent out to polling places on the day of the election, Christopher explained. If someone tries to vote in person after sending in a mail-in ballot, poll workers would be able to see that they had already voted. 

Conversely, Christopher said, there’s distrust from voters that their mail-in votes will be counted. “People don’t trust the mail. They don’t even trust that ballot box,” she said, referring to the ballot drop-off box placed inside the entrance to the Wayne County Courthouse. 

Christopher vouched for the security of the ballot drop-off box, and said that if a voter includes an email address with their mail-in ballot, they can receive updates on when their ballot has been received and processed. If voters include an email, they can also be informed if there’s an issue with their ballot that needs to be remedied. The most common errors she sees are voters not putting their ballot into the included security envelope and voters not properly signing their ballots. Under current state policy, making an error with the date doesn’t invalidate a ballot, but that can change, she said. 

Christopher added that for a ballot to count, it needs to be received by the bureau of elections by 8 p.m. on Election Day. In previous years, having it postmarked by Election Day would be enough, but that changed in 2018 or 2019, she said. 

She said that voters can always come in and return their mail-in ballots to the Bureau of Elections office directly. While Pennsylvania doesn’t have true early voting, this practice is known colloquially as “early voting” or as “over-the-counter voting,” she said. 

Voter eligibility

Questions also came regarding the process of ensuring voter eligibility. 

A voter needs to provide either a Pennsylvania driver’s license or a social security number to register to vote. Their information gets run through the Pennsylvania Statewide Uniform Registry, which is supposed to detect if a person is ineligible. 

A lot of the statewide system goes through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), said Christopher. Staff work to maintain the voter rolls, and are proactive in removing people when they are no longer eligible, scanning obituaries and the websites of funeral homes to learn when people have died. 

Christopher mentioned a specific batch of registrations in 2024 that the office flagged as suspicious for providing social security numbers, not drivers’ licenses, and had out-of-state mailing addresses. She called the individuals in question and learned from them that the Pennsylvania addresses they’d put down were not their primary residences; she was able to explain to them that that’s not how it worked. 

Federal interference

Members of the audience also asked for panel members’ thoughts on the potential for federal interference in the elections system. Specifically, they asked about the SAVE Act and a related executive order from President Trump to impose new requirements for voters, and the reported threat of having Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents present at polling places. 

Panelists said they focused on the work in front of them rather than on hypotheticals. Christopher said that her job is to follow the instructions of the Pennsylvania state government; until something happens, she wasn’t worrying about it, she said. 

Speaking personally, not as the director of the Bureau of Elections, Christopher said she didn’t see a need for the SAVE Act. She wouldn’t mind a requirement to provide ID to vote, because there are so many other parts of day-to-day life that already require presenting ID, but not all of the provisions in the act are necessary. 

Hutchison (who, in addition to serving as judge of elections, has an academic background in political science and wrote his honors thesis on photo ID in voting) said that elections law shouldn’t be either/or. 

Generally speaking, politicians on the left want to make voting more accessible, while politicians on the right want to bolster in-person voting. If they wanted to hash it out, there are policies that could meet both requirements—such as making a federal holiday for voting days, or providing universal, free photo ID—but instead it’s become a political football. 

Rosler said he didn’t think it had ever come up, the possibility of having ICE agents at polling places; it would be an unprecedented situation. He said he would check with the county solicitor for guidance.