“An election like no other”

(Wilkes-Barre) In downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, large boulders have been installed around the Penn Place Building, where all ballots in the Luzerne precinct will be transported and counted. The goal? Block a possible attack on the building.

A bulletproof wall was also installed to protect the electoral office. A camera continuously broadcasts images of the room where the ballots are stored on the web.

“It’s an election like no other,” attests Romilda Crocamo, director of Luzerne County, in the northeast of the state.

Located a little more than a two-hour drive from Philadelphia, the district is a “microcosm of what the nation is facing,” she said. “People are hostile, angry, they shout, they no longer listen to each other, there is no civility,” summarizes the former prosecutor, her hands crossed on the table in front of her. “And rather than resorting to violence as the last resort, it is the first resort. »

Romilda Crocamo claims to have received threats herself, but refuses to give details, as the investigation is ongoing, she says.

Almost everywhere in the United States, authorities are preparing for any eventuality, in a particularly tense context – Republican candidate Donald Trump was slightly injured in an assassination attempt this year.

Security top of mind: 92% of election officials have increased measures to protect voters, election workers and polling places since 2020, according to a spring survey by the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice, to which 928 officials responded.

Discarded ballots

Luzerne is one of the districts where voters’ distrust and anger are all the greater because past problems have fueled suspicions of embezzlement.

In the 2020 presidential election, 9 mail-in ballots were thrown out — a mistake with no evidence of criminal intent, an FBI and Justice Department investigation concluded. In 2022, during the midterm elections, 16 of 143 polling places ran out of paper for voting machines. Voters were still able to vote.

Luzerne elections director since 2022, Emily Cook assured that all problems had been resolved. But concerns remain.

“I’m very concerned about the integrity of the elections, and it’s not because I’m a fan of conspiracy theories,” said Gene Ziemba, chairman of the Luzerne Republican Party since July. “I believe that the Earth is round and that we really went to the Moon. »

But this retiree from the insurance field, met in Kingston, has difficulty believing the explanations given by electoral officials. “We ask ourselves: how can a constituency run out of paper for the elections? And then we realize that it happened in predominantly Republican districts, and it’s hard to believe that it’s a coincidence. »

The Luzerne public prosecutor rejected this claim and concluded after investigation that there had been no criminal intent.

Security

Persistent rumors raise fears that voters may decide to take the situation into their own hands, by imposing themselves without authorization to monitor the vote or by interfering with electoral workers.

“We have obviously increased security,” assures the sheriff of Luzerne, Brian Szumski, met in Wilkes-Barre. Without wanting to reveal the plans, he adds that the preparation affects all possible scenarios, in a context where “there is a level of extremism on both sides”.

Formerly Democratic, the constituency of 325,600 inhabitants, in which Donald Trump received 56.6% of the vote in 2020, extends over some 2,304 km^⁠2. It’s twice the agglomerations of Montreal, Laval and Longueuil combined, via winding roads.

“It’s a challenge, because we have a large area to cover, and we can’t be everywhere,” says Mr. Szumski.

This year, a new feature will allow its team to be notified more quickly in the event of problems: electoral workers will have access to a direct alert button, downloaded to their phones.

Rhonda Lambert, 72, has worked for five years in elections in her village of Harding, in Luzerne. During a meeting with The Press in October, she had just completed training. “Everyone is worried about security, not necessarily the violence as such, but a conflict or people trying to obstruct the vote in one way or another,” says the military retiree. .

Other nonpartisan groups offer additional training. “We see that districts and organizations have added de-escalation training this year,” notes Amy Widestrom of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania.

“It’s a really different election,” notes M^me Crocamo.