Venango County commissioners gave an update at their meeting Tuesday on mail-in ballots and other items related to the June 2 primary election.
The last day to change party registration before the primary is Monday, and voters can go to votespa.com or call the commissioners office to make the change.
While the county normally receives about 400 applications for absentee ballots, more than 3,000 applications for mail-in and absentee ballots have been received this year, commissioners chairman Sam Breene, said.
“The commissioners office and a lot of volunteers are sending out the mail-in ballots in a timely manner,” Breene said.
The completed mail-in ballots are due at the courthouse by 8 p.m. on election day. There will be a drop box for the mail-in ballots in front of the annex, Commissioner Albert Abramovic said.
Venango County will not be combining any of its 44 polling places, Breene said.
“Combining polling places would be unnecessarily confusing and counter intuitive to practicing social distancing,” he said.
The state will provide some personal protective equipment, and hand sanitizer will be available at the polling places, commissioner Mike Dulaney said.
To limit the number of people at the polls, constables won’t be required to be at every polling place. Instead, there will be roving constables assigned to different areas as well as constables on call, Breene said.
In other news from Tuesday’s meeting, Breene said that since the discount period for paying county taxes has been extended, taxpayers will continue to have a 2% discount on their taxes through June 30.
“Some people have been paying the full amount and then we have to send them refund checks for the extra money,” Breene said.
The face value period for tax payments has been extended to Sept. 30, and the penalty period won’t begin until Oct. 1.
Commissioners have been urging residents to contact their local municipalities to find out about deadline changes for municipal taxes.
