Lawsuit: Key Pennsylvania County Must Provide Paper Ballots to Voters in Major Election Integrity Victory

Voters won’t be disenfranchised by election mismanagement in 2024 as they were in 2022, according to a new settlement

Blame paper ballot shortages for disenfranchising dozens of voters in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

Some 40 precincts in this critical county southwest of Scranton, which broke heavily for Trump in 2016 and 2020, ran out of paper ballots on Election Day, forcing poll workers to turn away voters in the 2022 midterm election and outraging residents who didn’t wish to vote via electronic voting machine. While some voters were able to return later and cast a ballot at their local polling place—which were ordered by courts to remain open for two extra hours—many did not, meaning their vote was effectively suppressed by election mismanagement.

This disproportionately affected Republican voters.

“Someone definitely failed to do their job,” one self-described “appalled [and] disheartened” volunteer said. Indeed, Luzerne Co. had no plan to resupply precincts that ran out of paper ballots in 2022.

But that won’t be a problem in 2024, thanks to a critical legal settlement secured earlier this week by the Center for Election Confidence (CEC), an election integrity watchdog.

(RELATED: 100% Voter Turnout in Wisconsin Nursing Homes Isn’t Normal. Will it Happen Again in 2024?)

A Real Case of Voter Suppression

The lawsuit (French v. Luzerne Co.), brought on behalf of two of the affected voters last March, forced the county to sufficiently stock ballot paper and relevant supplies at every precinct, engage proper legal expertise, and provide adequate training for election workers to troubleshoot common polling place issues, after a report found high staff turnover left workers unprepared to handle the 2022 shortages. (Read the settlement details here.)

"This settlement is an important protection to ensure that the disenfranchisement suffered by Mr. French and Ms. Reese does not happen again in Luzerne County while also trying to help prevent future election problems,” CEC Senior Counsel Jonathan Hauenschild told Restoration News. “CEC is more than thrilled we could assist Mr. French and Ms. Reese with their efforts to hold the County accountable and help restore confidence in Luzerne's elections.”

Since the 2022 debacle, Luzerne Co. has switched from using electronic voting machines to traditional paper ballots to ensure there are sufficient ballots printed for every voter. The settlement will only bolster that smart policy change, which Hauenschild believes will have a positive effect on the rest of the state.

Not that Democrats are applauding. While left-wing activists talk big about photo ID and other election security measures suppressing Democratic voters, they’re strangely silent when it comes to concrete examples of voter suppression and disenfranchisement—because they hurt Republicans.

That’s why the Left supports absurd and dangerous policies like non-citizen voting, ranked-choice voting, hiding voter rolls from the public, blocking states from removing ineligible (and illegal!) voters from their voter rolls, funding ballot-counters with private money, using the government to mass-register Democrats, and even running elections with partisan consultants.

Ask yourself: Are any of these ideas meant to make it harder to cheat?

(READ MORE: There are 1,348 Voters Age 101+ On Arizona’s Voter Rolls Right Now)