Centre County votes to open satellite elections office on Penn State campus. What it means

Centre County’s elections board approved Friday the opening of a satellite elections office at University Park, a move that could help educate thousands of first-time voters but also gave election workers another task less than six weeks from Election Day.

Democrats Amber Concepcion and Mark Higgins voted in favor of opening the office at the Hammond Building, while Republican Steve Dershem voted against during a standing-room only meeting that was at times contentious.

Voter registration, mail-in and absentee ballot application processing, and marking of mail-in and absentee ballots may be provided at satellite offices. They are not polling places.

Satellite offices must be staffed by personnel appointed by the elections board and are required to provide copies of all ballot styles. They must also have a secure location to store mail-in and absentee ballots.

More than 30 people from nearly every corner of Centre County spoke at the crowded meeting that lasted more than two hours.

Supporters of the office touted the convenience and accessibility for Penn State students, university employees and others in Happy Valley. Some noted the transient nature of the region and others acknowledged it’s filled with young voters who may need help properly registering.

The office would be available to any voter in Centre County. It’s unclear when it would open.

“To have a location where questions could be answered in a non-judgmental fashion would be a great help to the kids that were trying to vote for the first time,” said Dianne Gregg, who taught for more than two decades at Penn State. “The first time you do anything, you kind of need some help.”

But opponents frequently questioned whether the office was needed, arguing that nearly every student has a cellphone and the ability to register online.

Others, including state Sen. Cris Dush, R-Brookville, told the board they believed opening the satellite office in the county’s most populated area was unfair to rural voters.

“They’d like to know why you’re not willing to provide them the same amount of services that you’re willing to provide to these students. There is no equality of access,” Dush said. “We don’t have it out there. The people I serve, they don’t have access. The people I serve on campus do.”

The nearest the meeting got to bipartisanship came when Dershem and some supporters acknowledged it would have been beneficial to have the discussion and vote earlier in the election cycle.

Sitting next to the county’s new elections director who has been on the job for less than two months, county Solicitor Betsy Dupuis said the board gave its elections office a “pretty hefty task.”

Dershem said the proposal was being voted on at the eleventh hour and openly wondered if the county will have enough manpower to operate the satellite office.

“There’s a lot of work that’s going to have to be done by the elections office down here to accommodate these services. I think we have enough things going on and enough moving parts right now to accomplish a successful election,” Dershem said. “I have run more than my share of them and I will tell you that last-minute changes are detrimental to the operation of that office and to the success of elections.”

It’s unclear how much it will cost the county to operate the satellite office, though Concepcion said there is no rental cost to use the university’s building.

Higgins did not seem concerned with rounding up enough people to staff the office, which he said would have “very, very limited” services.

“I would prefer to have something a bit more robust and then next year we can take a look to see if we can expand that a little bit broader in some other areas of the county,” Higgins said. “But I think at this point, this would probably be the lift we could do.”

The board’s next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 10.

The last day to register before the general election is Oct. 21 and the last day to apply for a mail-in or civilian absentee ballot is Oct. 29. Election Day is Nov. 5.