With the Presidential Election just a day away and heavy voter turnout being predicted nationally, Forrest Lehman, director of elections in Lycoming County, cautions voters showing up at the polls to be patient.

“I guess everybody should be prepared if they show up first thing in the morning to expect a long line. I don’t expect there will be long lines all day, but it is typical in presidential elections that we will see pretty long lines right at 7 a.m. when the polls open. So please be patient,” Lehman said.

“Please be kind to the poll workers, because they are working a very long day. They’re doing their best. They’re doing what the county is asking them to do. So they’re administering the policies, procedures, laws that govern elections the way the county’s instructed them. So everybody should try to be understanding to them, even if they’re upset about maybe how something happens and then they want to talk to us about it. That’s fine,” he explained.

There have been some recent incidents across the country which have challenged the right of people to wear clothing with political messages on it while at the polls. The clothing is not the issue, Lehman said.

“They can wear articles of clothing — that’s protected First Amendment speech. However, when they are inside polling places, there is a prohibition on active electioneering, so there should be no discussion about who to vote for, against, or anything along those lines,” Lehman said.

“There may be campaigners at the polling places. They are permitted to do that. There may be signs at polling places where the polling place facility has permitted signs to be on its property. However, there should not be any campaigners or signs within 10 feet of the door,” he said.

He added that his office is also requesting that any representative of a campaign at or political party a polling site park further from the building so that voters can have the closer parking spots.

After the unrest that ensued nationally after the last Presidential Election in 2020, Lehman said that he has received questions from poll workers about what to do in an emergency situation. Many have been about trying to arrange for constables to be out at precincts.

“Constables are independently elected offices, so someone has to actually run for constable and be elected to that office. I think only about half of the constable offices are currently filled. Many of them are vacant,” Lehman said.

“Then we will get questions like that from the poll workers about, you know, is there a constable? Can we get one? But, because they’re an elected office, it has to be someone who lives in that election district who gets elected to it,” he explained.

Stationing police officers at polling sites is also not an option.

“Sometimes they would ask me why we can’t have police out at precincts, and we’re not. We’re not permitted to station police officers at precincts because the election code prohibits them from being there, because it could also be interpreted as voter intimidation, if that was to happen. I believe they have to be at least 100 or maybe even 300 feet away from a precinct, unless there’s a situation that requires an emergency response,” he said.

Sometimes it seems like there are national news stories about challenges to voter eligibility or mail-in and provisional ballots, but have local election officials fielded any of those concerns?

“We’ve had no inquiries about challenges,” Lehman stated.

“The challenges against voter registrations by and large that have been attempted by outside groups have been on the basis of matching National Change of Address (NCOA) data against voter records. Now that is something that counties already do. We’re required to do that by the National Voter Registration Act, but those voter maintenance processes can only be conducted in between elections. It cannot be done within 90 days of an election. There’s a federal quiet period where that cannot occur,” he said.

He noted that most of the outside efforts are “just duplicating what counties are already doing.”

“They’re generally finding people that we’ve already identified and marked inactive and communicated with, or they’re finding people who we would have found in the next data match with NCOA data. But the problem with attempting to challenge registrations based on that data now on the eve of an election is that the federal, national voter registration act expressly forbids it,” he said.

Lehman’s office sent out mailings during the summer based on NCOA data and data from other states in order to complete the voter maintenance program well in advance of the 90th day before the election.

In 2020, voter registration statistics showed that there was a total of 73,766 county residents who had registered to vote in that national election-20,996 registered as Democrats and 42,871 as Republican. The Other designation accounted for 9,899. Statistics that were just filed by Lehman for 2024, show a total of 73,967 registered voters with 19,043 Democrats; 44,579 Republicans; and 9,925 Other.

There was an increase in requests for mail-in ballots for the upcoming election with around 13,600 people choosing that mode of voting. Lehman said that in 2020, there were just over 13,000 requests for mail-in ballots with about 10,000 being returned to be counted. At this time about 11,000 of the mail-in ballots for this year have been returned to Voter Service, although Lehman noted that number changes all the time with incoming mail. Counting of mail-in ballots does not begin by law until election day.

“Anybody who returned a voted mail ballot to voter services, those ballots are stored in a locked room until election day. That’s when we are able to open them and do what’s called pre-canvas them. So we compare the ballots we have in each precinct against the list of registered voters who we know applied for them and make sure our lists agree with the balance we’ve received back. Then we’re able to open the envelopes, get the ballots out, and we put them through our scanners,” he said.

“So we’re getting all of that work done during the day, starting at 7am given the number involved, and we will probably be working through the day until four or five on election day, and those results would appear in our first results report after the close of polls,” he added.

Because of this, some sense of the results of those ballots should be known right after the polls close.

“Generally even in 2020 this is true, but ever since act 77 our first results report in the night has included a few precincts-the first few precincts that report in-along with nearly all of our mail ballots. And I expect that will be the case again this time,” he said.

“By nearly all, the only mail ballots that would not be included in that total would be ballots we received back from military and overseas voters, which require special handling to get them counted. It’s possible there may be a few ballots that get damaged during the pre-canvassing or they’ve been damaged by the mail even before that. And so if that happens, those would require special handling as well,” Lehman said.

Another means of voting is by provisional ballot, which also has not been without controversy.

One reason for casting a provisional ballot is that a voter requesting a mail ballot and never received it because the post office never delivered it. They can then go to the polling place and cast a provisional ballot.

“We have a lot of people that do a provisional for that reason. Sadly, it’s one of the more common reasons for provisional ballots these days,” Lehman said.

“When you put 10,000 ballots into the mail, the post office doesn’t get them all delivered timely. And I don’t mean anything against our local post offices, because they actually turn themselves inside out to get us ballots and do a fantastic job. But there are problems in the larger sorting facilities. You know, in Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, we don’t have a lot of visibility into what goes on at those places,” he added.

There are other situations where a provisional ballot might need to be cast, such as someone who is a new voter or voting at a new precinct doesn’t have identification, they could cast a provisional ballot and have six days after the election to provide the necessary ID.

“There would also be a provisional cast if someone shows up at the wrong polling place in the county. We have 13 polling places in Williamsport if somebody shows up at the wrong one, and it’s right at the end of the night, you know, there’s no time to get them across town to the right place. They can cast a provisional and we would potentially be able to count it,” he said.

“The reason why provisional ballots exist is they were authorized by the Help America Vote Act back in 2004 and the reason why provisional balloting has existed since then is that a voter always has the right to cast a provisional ballot at their poll at a polling place if they believe that there is some problem or or mistake with anything that they’re being told by a poll worker or by the county,” Lehman explained.

“So if their name doesn’t appear in the poll book, but they believe that they should be registered, that they did a registration that the county lost, or some circumstance like that, they can cast a provisional ballot, and that preserves their right to vote until the situation can be researched more thoroughly after the election,” he said.

Lehman urged anyone who has any questions about voting, in particular in precincts where there have been changes made in where people will vote, to go to lyco.org/vote to look at the polling places to make sure they know where to go on election day.

Also, with the high turnout expected Tuesday, Lehman wanted voters to know that if they are in

line when the polls close they should stay in line and they will be allowed to vote.

With everything in place ready for the polls to open, Lehman said the big unknown is really what happens after the results are in.

“The bigger question mark to me is how things go after the election. You know, I know our part. I know the work we need to do, but the part of it I hope for every day is that this country will be able to find a way to be able to get back to processing the results of presidential elections in a healthy way,” he said.

“You know that it’s okay to be happy or to be very sad about the outcome of an election, because inevitably, you know, there will be winners and losers. That’s just how it works. That’s how democracy works. But I hope we can get back to a place where, if you know one side doesn’t win, you know, the way to deal with that is, you know that next year is an election year too. Go back, dust yourself off. Register more voters. Work on your candidates, work on your message, and maybe you can win one next time. That’s the way it used to be. I hope we can get back to that,” he said.