‘Just pure stupidity’: Officials from Luzerne County in Pennsylvania draw flak as voting machines run out of paper

LUZERNE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA: Many Pennsylvania voters, who went to vote in the midterm elections were held up on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, due to a lack of paper ballots at several polling stations. This led to the county’s voting deadline being extended from 8 pm to 10 pm under an emergency court order by Judge Lesa S Gelb of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas. According to the director of the Office of Communications and Press for the Pennsylvania Department of State, a total of 44 county polling stations were affected by the shortage, prompting the extension, according to WGAL.

According to The Hill, Gelb, in a one-page order, said, “The constitutional right to vote requires an extension of the voting hours after Luzerne County voters through no fault of their own, were disenfranchised and denied the fundamental right to vote.” The order came after an emergency petition was filed by Luzerne County election officials, who described in court papers, "Upon arriving at the polling locations to set up machines on Election Day poll workers at the Luzerne County polling locations discovered that the voting machines were seriously deficient of paper to print out the ballot after the voter uses the machine to vote."