At the October 13 County Commissioners Work Session, Mary Stehman, Chief Clerk/Registrar of the Election Office, presented the Commissioners with several new items for approval, including polling place changes in Columbia, Drumore, Elizabethtown, and Lancaster City. Also presented by Stehman was a new set of policies for the counting of write-in votes submitted in Lancaster County.
Stehman listed the following polling place adjustments:
- In the Fifth Ward of Columbia Borough, Saint Peter Apartments (400 Union Street) will replace the Susquehanna Fire Company #4. In this case, Stehman said, the polling place had earlier moved to the fire house because of planned renovations at St. Peter. Since the renovations did not move forward as expected, the polling place will return to the apartment complex.
- In Drumore Township, Chestnut Level Family Life Center (1068 Chestnut Level Road) will replace the Drumore Township Municipal Building. According to Stehman, the new location will provide improved parking and handicapped accessibility.
- In Elizabethtown Borough, Emmanuel Baptist Church (25 Beechwood Lane) will replace East High Elementary School. This change, Stehman said, was prompted by the school for security reasons.
- In Lancaster City, the new YMCA (265 Harrisburg Avenue) will replace the now-abandoned YMCA building on North Queen.
Stehman noted that, for community residents unaware of these changes, signs will be posted at the old locations during upcoming election days.
After seeing over 13,000 write-in votes in the county during last year’s primary election, Stehman said, it became clear to the Election Office that a specific policy was needed to better manage these special votes. In the past, the County had no such policies, which left only the arduous and subjective task of interpreting and counting these write-ins. A set of clear guidelines “would save everybody time and heartache,” Stehman asserted.
The proposed policy guidelines deal primarily with the spelling and arrangement with which a candidate’s name can be written. The policy would serve as a reference for election staff when determining a voter’s intent, and would approve the following variations (unless they create a conflict between the names of two separate candidates):
- Exclusion of a suffix (Sr., Jr., II, III, etc)
- Incorrect spelling of last name, when intent is evident
- Last name only
- Last name with incorrect first initial
- Last name with shorted first name
- First and last names with incorrect middle initial
- First and last names written as one word on an e-Slate machine
The following variations, according to the proposed policy guidelines, would not be accepted:
- First name only
- First name with last initial
- Initials only
- Suffix only as a nickname (Jr. or Junior)
- First name with suffix
According to Stehman, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and Constitution Party officials were invited to meet with the Election Office and review these new provisions. The two responding parties—Democrat and Constitution—had no qualms with the policy, Stehman said. The Commissioners will vote regarding this proposal at their Wednesday, October 13, Election Board Meeting.
