Accessibility of polling places and the strain between property rights and freedom of expression were examined by county officials at the commissioners’ most recent meeting.

Lycoming County commissioners voted to approve a change order of $16,350 with H&P Construction, an item in connection with the continuing accessibility polling project, and presented by Forrest Lehman, county director of elections.

“As you know we have been working on this for several years,” Lehman said. A contract that was awarded last year that did accessibility improvements at about 30 facilities. A second contract was awarded in January and “they are about to get started on it for 34 more places,” Lehman said. “This is the first change order to that contract. “We had a couple facilities we got in there at the last minute because we had to change a few places,” he said. Included are: Faith United Methodist Church, which is a new polling place; some work at Penn Township and Mt. Zion Church, which included work on the ramp; and there was work on the doors at Salladasburg United Methodist Church, he said. The $16,350 would modify the contract. A second action item presented by Lehman and approved by the commissioners was to approve a polling place agreement with Pennsylvania College of Technology.

But most of the conversation with Lehman centered on addressing an issue on political signage brought up by an individual to commissioners and focused on not being allowed to place a political sign on a polling place in Muncy, with an assertion it was a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.

“Last week … we had a concerned citizen here talking about polling places and some of the locations weren’t allowing signs,” Commissioner Scott Metzger said.

“Right,” Lehman said, aware of this issue.

“We had some of those locations that we are improving, that we’re spending taxpayers’ money to improve those sites at no cost to them,” Metzger said. “Can you work with us to allow those signs to satisfy all the taxpayers, especially those who are concerned with elections?” he asked Lehman.

“I want to be clear, I don’t have a personal position on this one one way or another,” Lehman said. He went into a deep dive explanation of what the office was encountering.

Some of the facilities are concerned about their non-profit status, he said.

There is real concern from some of the facilities that do not want to permit signage on their property of creating even a potential appearance of political favoritism.

“What if a candidate for one party puts signs up but not the other, and then somebody interprets that they are taking that position? That’s how they are looking at this,” he explained.

“Some facilities don’t look at it that way,” he added. “They decide ‘we’re just going to allow everything, and as long as we allow everything nobody can accuse us of having taken any sides on the election.””

From the county’s perspective Lehman was clear – “We have to have facilities where people can go to vote on election day, and they need to be accessible” he said.

“We absolutely, as you said, have to work with the facilities, and if some of them are taking that position we have to respect their right as a property (owner),” he said.

“If someone wants to put a sign anywhere (to advocate a candidate, a party whatever), that it always has to be done with the permission of the property owner, and if the municipality has the applicable ordinances,” Lehman remarked. “I can’t just go up to somebody’s house and put a sign in their yard,” he said.

“We do have some of these facilities that say they don’t want signs on their properties,” Lehman said. “They still permit, by and large, people to campaign. Someone can stand there on election day but they are not allowed to put stuff in the ground,” he said.

He continued: “We’ve seen some places where people will work around that. They will find an adjacent property where they intend to put signs down or they will put signs maybe along the road. But it always has to be with the permission of the property owner.”

He noted it is why the state Department of Transportation (PennDOT) will sometimes pull signs out of the right-of-way of the road because people will put stuff there without permission, or why polling places that do permit signs will pull them up after the election because the candidates didn’t do it, which is another concern that some of these facilities have, he said.

“They get frustrated because people don’t come around and pick up stuff they had and they have enough of it because they say the candidates are not picking up the signs any more. It is a constellation of concerns that they have,” Lehman said.

Mussina said he understood the argument about facilities claiming they might lose their tax exempt status, but noted how there has to be (legal) precedent that says ‘you’re OK to do this,’ isn’t there?”

“Can’t we advise them that this has come up in a thousand other places around the country and you are OK?” Mussina asked Lehman.

“Well, if there is any case law there that supports the position that this is not an endangerment of non profits status … I personally don’t have a problem with us sharing a communication like that,” Lehman said.

However, Lehman noted, at the end of the day the facility could still say ‘we don’t want to permit this on the property,'” he said. “In that case, again, they are a property owner; they can decide what goes there and what doesn’t go there. A lot of them, they don’t have to be polling places. Municipal buildings and schools have to be polling places if the board of elections requests it, but these other facilities – churches, fire halls … they don’t have to be a polling place, if they don’t want to. For some of them that could be a deal-breaker.”

A candidate or campaigner for a candidate may have a First Amendment right to express viewpoints or put up signs but it still has to be with the permission of someone who owns the piece of property, Lehman noted.

“No one has said they are allowing certain signs and disallowing others,” Mussina said.

Metzger, who said he was not taking a stance on either side of the issue, said a person might ask “‘what is the difference if a candidate or a candidates’ supporter stands there and asks for a person’s vote. What is the difference between that and a sign out front?'”

Lehman said he believed some of that comes down to the experiences that some of these facilities have had. For example, campaigners are probably not going to stay there after election day. But signs, in many cases, remain.

“I get a call after almost every election saying ‘there are still signs there. What do I do?'”

“My response is, ‘Hey, you own the property, you can do whatever you want.'”

That is why PennDOT has a shed behind its offices in Montoursville where it has signs workers have pulled off the roads over the years. The facilities end up having to do the same thing and that then plays into some of their frustration, Lehman observed.

“My only dog in this fight as director of elections is I need to make sure we have polling places,” he said. “And they need to be accessible and I need to keep them happy.”

He also noted how, as Mussina pointed out, in some of these areas there are no other good options for polling places.

“If we tell them you’ve got to allow signs and they just walk away we don’t have a polling place any more,” Lehman said.

County Solicitor Christopher Keynon said concerns of those non-profits are the signs are not considered to be an overt action of potentially engaging in political activity, which they are not permitted to do. As an example, a photo taken with a sign on a church property used as a polling place, which might be misconstrued by someone as a political support versus somebody standing at a polling place on election day.

Mussina also observed how one of the arguments presented to the commissioners was ‘you’re violating my First Amendment right of freedom of speech’ but not permitting the sign on a church that was serving as a polling location in Muncy, but, Mussina added, “it is not because you just can’t put a sign in anyone’s yard. The property owner still has control of their property.”

“No, absolutely not … you have a right of freedom of speech until you walk on, you go onto someone’s property and do something they are telling you you are not allowed to do that is arguably trespassing,” Lehman said.

The county has a polling place list and part of it includes notes to voters about relevant rules for each facility. These could be – ‘parking in this lot,’ or ‘use this door’ – because some have multiple ways in and out, but also ‘no political signs permitted on the property.'”