Carbon County is working to keep the elections department staffed properly ahead of the upcoming presidential election, but officials differed on whether a third full-time employee in the department was the proper solution at the moment.

On Thursday, the county salary board split 2-2 for establishing one department clerk III at a salary of $11.95 per hour. Commissioners Rocky Ahner and Chris Lukasevich voted no, while Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein and controller Mark Sverchek voted yes. The motion failed.

Before the vote, Ahner said it wasn’t that he is not for the third full-time position in the elections office, but felt he didn’t have enough information on the position at the moment to allow him to move forward with approving it.

“Right now, I don’t want to say yes, but I don’t want to say no either,” he said. “I think this needs to be addressed.”

Nothstein said that right now, the county has received over 7,000 applications for mail-in and absentee ballots and seven people are working in that office between five and seven days a week for upward of 16-hour days.

Lukasevich said he felt the additional full-time staff member would be premature at this time, but wasn’t opposed to looking at the additional employee for the 2021 budget.

He noted that there are only 41 days until the presidential election, and with the two full-time staff, as well as the part-time staff that had been authorized to work full-time hours up to the election, there is enough in the immediate future.

Lukasevich added that the county has done a significant number of things to help the department prepare for the higher mail-in ballots, including investing in a high-speed scanner, as well as a high-speed letter opener, which could open about 300 envelopes in 45 seconds.

He commended Director of Elections Lisa Dart on sticking it out and doing all she could with election preparations, pointing out that there are a lot of challenges with the pandemic, the new election law and the fact that it is a presidential election. To date, 11 election directors across the state have resigned because of the situation at hand.

He urged his fellow salary board members to wait until after the election to look at the needs of the department for the future and look back on the past three elections with the new kiosks and voting methods.

“We don’t have the information to make an informed decision about what we need for the future of that office,” Lukasevich said. “I would rather continue to commit minimal resources (in the form of part-time staff) until we can make a better, more informed decision.”

Nothstein said his fear is mistakes in the election being made because the current staff is working long hours.

“I don’t want any mistakes. I don’t want it coming back on me as a member of election board that things happened,” he said.

Following the failed motion, the board passed a modified motion to establish two part-time elections clerks.