For Forrest Lehman, director of Voter Services, it’s time to just get the hand recount of the 2020 election done.

“Professionally, I oppose it. But, I mean we’ve gotten to the point where maybe it just needs to happen, because at that point, it will finally just put to bed these allegations about the accuracy of our equipment — unsubstantiated, meritless attacks in the face of years of evidence of pre-election testing, post election audits that show its accurate,” Lehman said.

“If we have to hand-count 60,000 ballots to prove it again, if that’s what we have to do, well, that really will need to be the end of it because there’s really not much else you can do beyond that…at that point it will not be possible to level these kinds of baseless accusations in the face of that evidence anymore,” he said.

At times there were interruptions and accusations at this week’s Board of Elections meeting, but representatives from both sides of the issue were given a chance to voice their opinion either for or against the recount.

Lehman’s comments came at the end of a meeting punctuated with claims that mail-in ballots are “franchises for fraud” according to Richard Houser, of Loyalsock Township, and that what has become known as the Jan. 6 insurrection was really a “rally,” Bob Pryor, of Jersey Shore contended.

On the flipside, John Shableski, of Linden, compared the actions of the election deniers to a series of events that led up to Hitler seizing power in Germany.

“You keep creating this tension over these votes. The decision was made. The votes were cast. We need to move on,” Shableski said.

“The trust that we’ve had for generations is being eliminated because you voiced this concern…because it’s false. It leads to mistrust. It creates mistrust in every institution we have. We need to move forward and we need to have that trust — 2020 is done,” he said.

Bill Miele, of Williamsport, suggested that the people calling for the recount should pay for it and not the rest of the taxpayers in the county, while the other side argued that you can’t put a price tag on freedom.

“Our constitutional rights are being violated by the liberal politicians and media every day,” Pryor said.

“We’re standing up for our right to do what we’re doing. We will not be shut down. We’re not going to stop. We’re patriots — we love our country,” Pryor said.

The county had just conducted an election last month, where commissioner Rick Mirabito noted no one was contesting the results.

“Did we use the same machines we used in 2020?” Mirabito asked Lehman, who answered “yes.”

“Did you conduct other audits that we do in the county to make sure that the count is correct?” the commissioners asked.

“The audits we conducted consisted of recounting 2% of the ballots cast in that election by hand,” Lehman answered.

“Were the machines working properly?” Mirabito continued questioning Lehman.

“Absolutely,” Lehman answered.

“So, in all the elections where we’ve used those machines, we’ve never had a problem with the machines?” Mirabito continued.

Lehman’s answer of “no” was met with brief applause at the meeting.

Countering one of the arguments against drop boxes for ballots, Commissioner Scott Metzger pointed out that Lycoming County does not utilize drop boxes.

“Our votes are counted and the results are that night,” Metzger said, knocking down the argument that election days go on for weeks before the results are known.

“We’re not Maricopa County. We’re Lycoming County — it’s done right here,” Metzger said.

“I resent this has been brought to Lycoming County. I resent it because we’ve got honest people in Lycoming County, and yet we’re going into 2023 and we’re still talking about 2020,” he said.

Metzger cited a concern for voter confidence as the reason he gave the OK for a recount in the first place.

“When people lose that confidence and they don’t want to go vote, we’ve lost our country. No matter what side you’re on, everybody has to be able to go vote and know that it counts,” Metzger said.

“So, this is a way to put it to bed, to show that it’s accurate,” Metzger said, referring to the hand count.

“And, if it isn’t accurate, then we’ll address that, but I believe in Lycoming County, it’s accurate,” he added.

The Board of Elections, composed of the county commissioners, will be making a determination at their next meeting of how the county will move forward with the recount.