Carbon County has entered into a retainer agreement with a Stroudsburg attorney to defend the county in two pending elections lawsuits.

On Thursday, the commissioners ratified an agreement with attorney Gerard Geiger of Newman Williams law firm to represent both the county and the county board of elections in the Donald J. Trump for president and Republican lawmakers federal suit against Pennsylvania and the Democratic State Committee lawsuit in commonwealth court.

County solicitor Dan Miscavige said that Geiger has also been retained by Monroe, Pike, Wayne and Snyder counties, so Carbon would only need to pay 1/5 of the cost of defense in this matter.

In the federal lawsuit, Trump’s re-election campaign and Republican lawmakers claim the state is violating election law and increasing the risk of fraud by allowing “drop boxes” for collecting absentee and mail-in ballots due to the pandemic.

Carbon County installed a mail slot at its 76 Susquehanna St. building to allow residents to return their ballots without contact during the pandemic.

The suit says the drop boxes go beyond the Legislature’s mandate for expanded mail-in ballots in the June 2 primary because they could not be monitored.

“The result is that a significant portion of votes for elections in Pennsylvania are being cast in a fashion that denies any procedural visibility to candidates, political parties and the public in general, thereby jeopardizing the free and fair public elections guaranteed by the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions,” the complaint said. “The use of illegal and inadequately noticed drop boxes or mobile drop-off facilities eviscerates the procedural protections that currently accompany Pennsylvania’s vote by mail procedures by creating a gap in the ability of both the commonwealth and political parties to observe the delivery process and ensure that Pennsylvania’s election laws are being followed.”

The suit seeks to ban drop boxes for the upcoming November election or chosen and monitored by poll watchers.

In the second lawsuit, where state Democrats filed a case to counter the election rules case filed by the Trump campaign, the party sued all 67 county election boards over the vote-by-mail process.

Filed earlier this month, the case highlights the ballot return deadlines, ballot drop-off procedures and other mail-in voting issues.

It also seeks a court order that counters the claims made in the federal lawsuit and seeks to maintain the current requirement that poll watchers reside in the county where they are working, which reverses the federal lawsuit claim that poll watchers can reside anywhere in the state.

The Democrats are also asking for clarification that counties can approve their own ballot collection plans and allow election offices to accept ballots that were postmarked by Election Day for up to one week after the polls close.