LEBANON, Pa. — A brand new Lebanon County voting drop box is set to open Monday outside the County Courthouse, with the box located inside a recently built shed.
The new method was approved by the Lebanon County Commissioners earlier this month by a 2-1 vote after initially voting to get rid of the county's only mail ballot drop box back in February.
The new dropbox sits inside a shed built by Myerstown Sheds & Fencing, which cost over $2,700 to build. The shed will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, the same hours the previous drop box had been open.
An election worker will oversee the dropbox while it's open. The worker will receive the mail-in ballot from the voter and place it in the box and will be paid $120 per day, unless they are already an employee of the county.
The shed has three cameras surrounding it, the same number of cameras that had been overseeing the previous drop box.
Lebanon County Commissioner Jo Ellen Litz opposed the implementation of the shed, believing the additional cost was unnecessary.
"It was convenient," Liz said of the old drop box. "There were no lines, it was no fuss, no muss. People loved it. Thousands of people used it over the last seven elections successfully. And our staff would come down, empty it, and take the voting ballots into their office. And they would be time and date stamped and counted."
The other two members of the commission who supported the shed say the new method is meant to increase security.
"It was so much secure, the drop box, the way we had it," Commissioner Michael Kuhn told FOX43 in January. "In my opinion, it's not as secure as it could be."
According to Litz, there has not been a case of double voting in Pennsylvania since 1994.