Lehigh, Northampton reinforce arsenal for counting mail-in ballots
New machines can open envelopes, record returned ballots by the thousands
Lehigh County and Northampton counties have been beefing up their abilities to more quickly process the thousands of mail-in ballots that stream into their election offices.
Both counties recently purchased automated processing systems that, among other features, can make a scanned record of returned mail-in or absentee ballot envelopes, remove the contents and tabulate paper ballots results.
The machines are capable of processing thousands of ballots an hour, speeding up the time it takes to post final votes on election night.
Under Pennsylvania law, mail-in and absentee ballots cannot be opened for counting until 7 a.m. on Election Day.
As such, preparing and counting the mail-in ballots has become a pressure-filled endeavor since the option was first allowed in 2020 following the bipartisan approval of 2019’s Act 77.
Mail-in and absentee ballots in Pennsylvania arrive in the mail in a large envelope that contains a ballot, a secrecy envelope and a stamped, return envelope.
Voters fill in the paper ballot, slip it in the secrecy envelope to protect their privacy then place it inside the return envelope, which can be mailed, placed in a designated ballot drop box or turned into the voter’s county election office.
According to state statistics, Lehigh and Northampton counties had 44,470 state-approved requests for mail-in and absentee ballots, though that doesn’t mean all were returned for the May 16 primary.
That number should greatly expand next year thanks to a June decision by the state Commonwealth Court upholding Act 77, an expected higher voter turnout in a presidential election year and a softening among Republican leaders in using the option.
LEHIGH COUNTY
Lehigh recently purchased an Opex Model 72, an automated envelope opener, for first-time use for the Nov. 7 election, according to Chief Election Clerk Timothy Benyo.
The Model 72 can open 3,600 envelopes an hour. As batches of envelopes are fed into the machine, it slices open the top and one side of each envelope and removes the content for collection by a staff operator.
Benyo said Model 72 is used to open the outer envelope and secrecy envelope on Election Day.
Opex’s website says the New Jersey-based company specializes in systems for ballot opening, medical and archive scanning, digital mail and claims processing among other services,
It says the Model 72 cuts the processing time for opening envelopes by 78%, reducing the number of employees needed to do the job.
In addition to buying the Model 72, Lehigh replaced an AgilisFalcon machine with an Agilis Ballot Packet Sorting System, which is manufactured by Runbeck Election Services, a 51-year-old company based in Phoenix, Arizona.
The system can handle 18,000 envelopes per hour.
The Agilis scans barcodes on the return envelope to log receipt of an individual’s ballot and tabulates the number of ballots returned.
The system also makes a scanned image of the return envelope so staff can manually check it for required dates and signatures.
Further, the Agilis can detect whether the returned envelope is thick enough to contain the secrecy envelope and ballot.
Programming allows for a second run-through of envelopes on the Agilis so the problem ballots can be separated and voters contacted about fixing errors or voting by provisional ballot before the 8 p.m. deadline for voting on Election Day.
Last fall, Lehigh and Monroe counties became the first in the nation to use the AgilisFalcon, according to Runbeck.
The $517,000 cost to buy the Opex 72 Model and the faster Agilis were paid for by a state Election Integrity grant.
To count votes, Lehigh will continue to use state-certified tabulating systems supplied by ES&S. Paper ballots were first required in 2020. Each polling place has at least one DS200 scanner while the election office has three higher speed models.
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY
Northampton County also recently purchased the Runbeck Agilis Ballot Packet Sorting System, which will be used for the first time for the Nov. 7 election, according to Brittney Waylen, the county’s deputy director of administration.
Waylen said Northampton bought two DS950 High-Speed Scanner and Tabulators from ES&S. The machines can tabulate the results of up to 16,800 paper ballots per hour per machine. They first went into effect for the May 16 primary.
Waylen said the county has been using two Opex Omation Series 210 Envelopener machines, which can open 400 envelopes per minute per machine.
Editor’s note: Lehigh County recently purchased an Agilis Ballot Packet Sorting System. A previously version of this story misidentified it as an AgilisFalcon.