BETHLEHEM, Pa. — A lawsuit from two Pennsylvania voters who say they’ve been disenfranchised by their county’s poor election administration could be just the tip of the iceberg of problems in November’s presidential election, an election-integrity attorney tells The Post.
Plaintiffs William French, a disabled Army veteran, and Melynda Reese, a caretaker for her ill husband, slapped Luzerne County with a suit in March 2023 alleging they were disenfranchised as a result of the county’s failure to print enough paper ballots at polling locations for the 2022 midterms.
Despite attempting to vote multiple times, French and Reese were told to come back later by county officials but unable to do so because of their extenuating life circumstances.
The plaintiffs filed the suit through the nonpartisan Center for Election Confidence, a nonprofit focused on ethics in the electoral process that works to safeguard the rights of eligible voters.
“There were various reasons where they attempted to vote in person and could not because there was a lack of paper,” said Jonathon Hauenschild, an attorney who works with CEC but does not represent these particular plaintiffs.
Hauenschild says the county’s reluctance to enact meaningful changes could lead to similar issues on a larger scale this year, as the presidential race will drive voter turnout much higher.
“Everything that happened in 2022 could very well happen in 2024 or worse because the county’s just not prepared for it,” Hauenschild told The Post.
Luzerne County officials did not participate in a 2023 congressional hearing into the matter, during which House members concluded there had been “malfeasance, negligence, and incompetence” in the county’s election administration.
A less scathing report from the Luzerne County district attorney’s office last year blamed the mishaps on insufficient training within the county’s Bureau of Elections.
Luzerne County failed to respond to the plaintiffs’ demand for a settlement this summer — forcing them, CEC said, to inform the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, where the lawsuit remains active.
Hauenschild said that while he can see why the county is reluctant to admit fault, there are ways to settle the case without completely doing so — such as making a more “future-focused” administration plan with improved training on state law for election officials.
“We can’t go back and change the past, and that’s a lot of what [French and Reese] are focused on,” Hauenschild said. “They want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
