According to a letter from U.S. Attorney Freed to the county elections director, the inquiry into Luzerne County's ballot handling began Monday and found that nine military ballots had been "improperly opened" by elections staff and "discarded."
He wrote that "the majority" of the recovered ballots and envelopes were found in an outside dumpster — seven of the nine ballots outside their official envelopes, and two that elections staff had apparently recovered and sealed back in their envelopes. He said investigators also found four "apparently official" absentee ballot envelopes that were empty.
All of the ballots found outside envelopes were cast for Trump, Freed's letter said; it's unknown who two sealed ones are for.
Pennsylvania law dictates all mail ballots — military or otherwise — be securely stored until processing can begin. In the commonwealth, that's not until 7 a.m. on Election Day.
Based on interviews, however, Freed said investigators had concluded that all the envelopes — likely a very small number — that had been received by the Luzerne County Board of Elections were opened "as a matter of course."
Workers, he wrote, explained that the envelopes used for mail ballot requests were so similar to the ones used for returned mail ballots that they believed they would miss requests if they preserved all the envelopes unopened.
"Even though your staff has made some attempts to reconstitute certain of the improperly opened ballots, there is no guarantee that any of these votes will be counted in the general election," he said.
