This Swing County Is The Country’s Post-2020 Election Nightmare

Three-and-a-half hours at the Luzerne County Board of Elections in Pennsylvania paints a chaotic picture of how elections will be run for the foreseeable future.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — When the Luzerne County Board of Elections finally approved its motion Wednesday night allowing two ballot drop boxes to be placed ahead of the presidential election in 27 days, there was, oddly, little to no reaction from the people who had spent the past several weeks bickering, complaining and even shouting about drop boxes.

That’s because — even after weeks of debate and an hour of public comment this evening alone —“there was never a doubt” the majority Democratic elections board would eventually vote in favor of the boxes, explained Theodore Fitzgerald, a Republican helping lead the effort against the boxes.

“As far as a secure election and all, we’re not confident because we don’t trust a lot of things in Luzerne County,” Fitzgerald told me after the vote.

Fitzgerald oversees an independent group of grassroots Republicans in the county (resulting in the existence of both the Luzerne County Republicans, which he leads, and the official GOP apparatus, the Republican Party of Luzerne County), and he’s one of at least a dozen activists who show up regularly to board meetings to confront members and drag out public comment sessions.

This week’s meeting of the Luzerne County Board of Elections, its final scheduled meeting before the election, was anything but a sleepy municipal gathering.