A neighboring county found out just how important it is to have experienced election officials in place to conduct a worry-free General Election.

After an intensive seven-month investigation into why so many of his county’s polling places had problems, including running out of paper, Republican Luzerne County District Attorney Samuel M. Sanguedolce released his scathing report earlier this month blaming high staff turnover and inexperience as the leading culprits.

That said, however, Sanguedolce cited other issues, including a culture of political chaos which led to the revolving door and recriminations from both the state and federal governments.

During this seven-month period in which there has been anger from voters clamoring for answers, all of the key players begged off making comments saying they were waiting for the DA’s findings.

During this time, there was a congressional hearing whose title was “voter suppression,” but Sanguedolce’s report said he could find no credible evidence that there was any collusion or any attempt to suppress voters’ ballots.

Members of the House Administration Committee concluded that a paper shortage such as the one that occurred in Luzerne County last November is “totally unacceptable.” They called it a massive failure of election administration. With both Republicans and Democrats on this committee, acrimony was on full display as both sides debated whether what happened could be classified as voter suppression, as some critics contend, or a case of gross negligence brought on by inexperienced personnel.

Sanguedolce’s report indicated it was the latter, and the Luzerne County Council has already begun making some changes to ensure there is not a repeat performance during this November’s General Election.

The council has appointed a new elections director, and, in the process, returned the director who oversaw last November’s election to his previous role as deputy director.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections, cited Luzerne as the only county with significant voting issues during an otherwise very smoothly run midterm election.

Once solidly Democratic, Luzerne County today has gone through a seismic political change in which Republicans have made sizable gains in voter registration and influence. Republicans trail Democrats by a mere 6,000 in voter registration statistics as of mid-June, a pickup of about 1,000 more registrations than Democrats since the beginning of March.

Going back to Nov. 8, 2022, Election Day, some Luzerne polling places had begun running out of paper by 9 a.m., just two hours after the polls had opened. By 8 p.m., when the polls were to have closed, the affected precincts had reported shortages. The situation had become so dire that a county judge ordered polls to stay open an extra two hours, until 10 p.m., to accommodate voters who had been unable to cast their ballots earlier in the day.

The fact that Luzerne election officials ordered thousands of pieces of ballot paper on Election Day was a dead giveaway that some had failed to do their jobs earlier.

Sanguedolce’s report laid out in detail how the paper shortage occurred, how election officials attempted to deal with it on Election Day and how the issue played out during the 15 hours that the polls were open.

One important fact that the DA wanted to clear up: The original report had indicated that one-third (33%) of Luzerne’s 143 voting districts had run out of paper; in reality, the verifiable number was 16, or 11%.

It’s unclear how many voters wound up not casting ballots because of the snafu, either because they gave up in disgust or refused to return to their voting locations after being told of the shortage when they earlier arrived or because of the chaos and lines that had begun to form in the aftermath of the paper problems.

Sanguedolce’s report notes that the average tenure of election staff last fall was just 1.5 years. Compare this to the median of 17 to 22 years of service among election bureau staffers between 2016 and 2019.

The DA had said previously that he was prepared to go wherever the facts took him, even if this meant bringing charges against officials, employees and/or former employees for malfeasance. The final report, however, did not recommend charges against anyone.

By BRUCE FRASSINELLI| tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.