Five referendum questions and 38 candidates for a proposed government study commission mean most Lackawanna County voters will receive an unusually long, doubled-sided ballot when they go to the polls May 21.
The questions and the lengthy list of commission candidates occupy nearly the entire reverse side of sample primary election ballots posted on the county website, with the more traditional state, county, municipal and school board races on the other.
While county voters have seen a double-sided ballot in the general election as recently as 2011, Director of Elections Marion Medalis said it may be a first for a primary.
The only other option would have been two separate ballots and the potential for confusion at the polls, she said.
"Poll workers would have had to make sure they were giving the voters, say, one ballot with the candidates' names on it and then another ballot with just the referendum questions," Mrs. Medalis said. "It would have been too chaotic."
With the approval of the board of elections, Mrs. Medalis' office opted to go ahead with the printing of the ballots even though the state Supreme Court could still order changes.
At issue are the number and form of the ballot questions.
Under an order from county court in March that was upheld by Commonwealth Court last month, a proposal by the county commissioners to amend the Home Rule Charter to eliminate four elected row offices - sheriff, register of wills, recorder of deeds and clerk of judicial records - will appear as four separate questions.
The commissioners, who believe the fate of the four offices should be decided as a single referendum, want the Supreme Court to reverse Commonwealth Court. A separate appeal seeks to knock the row office questions off the ballot entirely. The fifth question - whether voters want to establish a commission to study the county's form of government - is not affected by the appeals.
Mrs. Medalis said her office had to proceed with printing of the ballots to comply with a state law requiring absentee ballots to be in the mail by next Tuesday.
"There is no way we could have possibly waited until the Supreme Court handed down their decision, gone to print and been in compliance with the law," she said.
Election board solicitor John Williams said if the Supreme Court makes a decision requiring changes to the ballot, the Department of Elections will comply.
The only voters who will not receive a doubled-sided ballot May 21 are those registered as independents or to third parties and who normally do not participate in primaries.
Mrs. Medalis said they are eligible to vote on the nonpartisan referendum questions and for members of the study commission; the other side of their ballot will be blank.
As of Thursday, there were 146,677 people registered to vote in the county: 95,420 Democrats, 38,451 Republicans and 12,806 other. Mrs. Medalis said those numbers could still change slightly.
Contact the writer: dsingleton@timesshamrock.com