Schuylkill County voters will continue to have a drop box at the election bureau headquarters, but that likely will be the only location.

The election board discussed the topic Wednesday. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled earlier this month county boards of elections are permitted by the election code to collect mail-in ballots at sites other than the election office. The court also extended the time for absentee and mail-in ballots so that those postmarked by 8 p.m. Nov. 3 and received by the respective election offices by 5 p.m. Nov. 6 can be counted.

Commissioner Barron “Boots” Hetherington was the first to mention the drop boxes.

“That’s allowed by the courts, right?” Hetherington asked solicitor Christopher Hobbs.

“It’s allowed, but that’s within your discretion,” Hobbs said.

Commissioner George Halcovage Jr. quickly commented.

“That’s the choice of the election board. We have it that all the ballots had come in to the election board, there in to the election bureau. Again, I’m not putting this for a vote. It’s just for discussion. I think it worked very well in the primary, and I think from a safety and security standpoint that would probably be a good thing to continue to have it at that location,” Halcovage said.

Hetherington said he spoke to Christine Marmas, lead clerk in the elections office, recently who “felt it better to have it there (at the election bureau) otherwise you’d have remote boxes. You’d have to have someone watching them. They’d have to use resources.

“Let’s keep it at the election bureau,” Hetherington said.

“I think it’s something that we give deference to our new election director to look and get some best practices. I know you’ve reached out to some other counties already. Other election directors to discuss things with them, so I appreciate the initiative that you are taking already,” Halcovage said to Albert Gricoski, elections director.

Hetherington then asked about people bringing in ballots.

“If a person does bring a ballot in, how do we know it’s their ballot?” he said.

Hobbs said the statute “simply says it should be delivered in person unless there is a disability. If you have a disability, you are allowed to have someone else bring it in for you,” Hobbs said.

Hetherington then asked if there was anything in the statute about “bringing in an ID.”

“We can’t go over what the statute says,” Hobbs said.

“One person brings in one ballot. I can’t walk in with mine and my wife’s, right,” Hetherington said.

“I’m just telling you what the statute says. The statute says it should be delivered in person,” Hobbs again said.

“So someone can’t walk in with a handful? It has to be in person,” Hetherington said.

Earlier in the meeting Halcovage said the county expects a large number of mail-in ballots.

“One of the things our board is doing is that we are committed to running a safe and secure election. It’s going to be timely. We have done as an election board to make sure that the polling places are going to be open. That people can go their polling place to vote in person or if they use a mail-in ballot that we take this responsibility very seriously to have a fair, secure and accurate election,” Halcovage said.

The county had received copies of the official ballots from the state, which had been delayed because of court litigation statewide. Sample ballots for each municipality are listed on the county website, co.schuylkill.pa.us.

The board also voted to start precanvassing at 7 a.m. Election Day.