With 62 days until the primary election, candidates for the Pennsylvania House and state committees are awaiting clarity on when to circulate petitions.

On Tuesday, the McKean County commissioners — Chairman Tom Kreiner, Carol Duffy and Cliff Lane — released a joint statement, seeking quick action from the state Supreme Court to clarify the state’s legislative maps so primary election preparations can begin.

“As far as I am aware, the House of Representatives and the state committee person positions are held up,” said Kreiner. “It really puts our director of elections up against the time limit.”

He said the elections office isn’t behind schedule as of yet, but “we’re getting to where it’s down to brass tacks.”

The sample ballots must be printed, military, overseas, mail-in and absentee ballots need to be printed and so on.

“Time is essential,” Kreiner said. “It gets frustrating. I think everybody just wants to get this going,” Kreiner added. “Our poll workers really deserve that. None of this election (confusion during) these past couple of years is their fault.”

However, it has caused a lot of volunteers to rethink their willingness to participate.

“We’ve seen a decline in the past couple of years in people wanting to be poll workers,” Kreiner lamented.

A joint statement by the commissioners read as follows: “Counties are the voice of elections in Pennsylvania and need timely election calendar deadlines to be able to accomplish the necessary tasks to promote election integrity and to give our voters confidence in the election process. Delaying the timing of the process puts added pressure on the Director of Elections to complete the necessary documentation to get ballots printed and machines ready for voting.”

As the appeal period on the legislative maps closed March 7, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court to request the court expedite its decision and offer counties a reasonable amount of time to complete the tasks associated with the May Primary, should it consider adjusting the election calendar with respect to the General Assembly’s seats.

The commissioners said McKean County cannot complete crucial election tasks such as preparing ballots for absentee, mail-in, military and overseas voters or programming voting machines until a decision is handed down since it is currently unknown which candidates are running in each district.

“The longer it takes for these outstanding decisions to be made, the more pressure is put on counties and our election workers to stretch their resources ahead of the 2022 Primary Election,” said CCAP Executive Director Lisa Schaefer. “While CCAP does not take a position on the merits of the map before the Court, it was imperative that we educate the court about what counties need for a timely, clear and unified solution to run a smooth Primary Election, including maintaining a single Primary Election date for all contests.”

Counties are responsible for all aspects of running elections in Pennsylvania under the state’s Election Code. Under that law, a daunting number of tasks are still required of counties between now and May 17 — including preparing ballots for absentee, mail-in, military and overseas voters and programming voting machines, which cannot happen until candidates know for certain in what districts they are running, petitions are filed and all objections to those petitions resolved. This is in addition to other critical and ongoing work such as processing voter registrations, training poll workers, preparing poll books and other materials for polling places, and otherwise assisting voters.

‘“Pennsylvania counties have and will always administer accurate, fair and successful elections, but the longer it takes to achieve clarity around our Primary Election process, the more likely they will be forced to consider spending property taxpayer dollars on emergency assistance such as additional workers, printing needs and supply chain shortages,” said CCAP President and Bradford County commissioner Daryl Miller. “We can minimize this if counties just have clear, direct guidance on election protocol, as quickly as possible, and even more importantly, eliminate confusion and give our voters the utmost confidence in the integrity of the election process.”