EASTON, Pa. — Northampton County elections officials are on track to mail out absentee ballots in early October, Registrar of Elections Chris Commini told a county council committee Wednesday.
Work to prepare for the Nov. 5 general election continues apace, he said during a meeting of the council’s Election Integrity Committee.
With this cycle’s last ballot challenge resolved this week in the Pa. Supreme Court, the elections office has finalized who will appear on Northampton County’s ballots.
Officials now are reviewing pre-print proofs of each version of the ballot.
Once Commini’s office approves the proofs, their printer will run off a set of test ballots.
To make sure they are compatible with the county’s tabulation equipment, workers will run all of the test ballots through each of their high-speed scanners.
Assuming everything works as intended, Commini then will place an order for about 60,000 absentee ballots.
Once the printed ballots arrive in Easton, the office will begin stuffing them in envelopes and sending them to voters who requested them.
Workers also will begin offering ballot-on-demand voting, through which voters appearing in person at the county elections office can request, receive, fill out and submit a mail ballot in a single visit.
Mail ballots and drop boxes
The first round of mail ballots should go out in “very early October,” Commini said. “That’s the best I can do; I won’t put a specific date on it.”
So far, more than 39,000 voters in the county have requested a mail ballot, Commini said.
It’s hard to know at this point how 2024 will compare to 2020, when officials sent out 73,000 ballots. The final day to request a mail ballot is Oct. 29.
A few days after ballots go out, workers will place seven drop boxes across the county where voters can return their ballots without relying on the Postal Service.
While most of the drop boxes are only available during business hours of the buildings they are in, the box at the county 911 center will be accessible to voters 24/7 until polls close on Nov. 5.
Once ballot-on-demand voting begins, the elections office and the drop box in the rotunda of the Northampton County Courthouse will be open until 8 p.m. on weekdays, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
Though it is going to take some time to count the thousands of submitted mail ballots come election day, Commini said, the office will have final unofficial results posted later that night.
The last day to register to vote in the November election is Oct. 21.
