Auditor General Eugene DePasquale will investigate expenses-paid trips for Luzerne County Election Director Marisa Crispell and the Nebraska-based company that funded the trips and provided Luzerne County's electronic voting machines and poll books.

It will be part of an audit DePasquale began to evaluate the integrity and security of the state's voting system. DePasquale said Saturday he will meet with his staff Monday to discuss expanding the scope of the audit to review Crispell's trips.

"I want to dig into this further," DePasquale said. "It's concerning at a minimum that a vendor is paying for trips, especially on something this important."

In June, DePasquale announced he was starting an audit of the state's voting system, in part based on Homeland Security information confirming that Pennsylvania was one of 21 states Russian hackers targeted prior to the 2016 election.

Crispell traveled to Las Vegas and Nebraska last year for meetings of the Election Systems & Software customer advisory board, The Citizens' Voice reported Thursday. Her travel and lodging expenses were paid for by ES&S, which provided the county's voting machines in 2006 and also supplied an electronic poll book system purchased this year by the county for $324,802.

DePasquale said he learned of Crispell's trips on Twitter on Saturday. He replied to tweets from election integrity advocate Jennifer Cohn, who posted a tweet linking an article from The Citizens' Voice about Crispell's trips.

"Unacceptable!" DePasquale replied in a tweet.

Cohn also linked a McClatchy article from June about ES&S, the nation's largest voting equipment vendor, coaxing state and local elections officials to serve on its advisory board and gather twice annually for company-sponsored conferences.

"These company sponsored trips are unacceptable. #PA officials on these trips will be questioned," DePasquale replied in another tweet.

In July, DePasquale said he was expanding his review of the state's voter registration infrastructure, after learning a Russian oligarch was a primary investor in the company that manages Maryland's system. The audit will provide recommendations to "enhance voting security in Pennsylvania," DePasquale said.

Luzerne County in 2006 spent more than $2.4 million in federal money to buy 750 touch-screen voting machines from ES&S. Crispell's first appointment as Luzerne County election director was in 2012.

In 2015, Crispell resigned as election director, but she continued to work as a contract employee for the elections office and was rehired as director later that year. Crispell and County Manager David Pedri did not return messages seeking comment Saturday.

On Wednesday, Crispell said she did nothing wrong by serving on the ES&S advisory board, which was an unpaid position, and by going on trips, in which ES&S paid the expenses. She also said her supervisor, Director of Administrative Services David Parsnik, and elections board solicitor Michael Butera did not object to her serving on the company advisory board and taking the trips.

Members of county council, which voted in April to purchase an electronic poll book system from ES&S for $324,802, said they were not informed about Crispell's position on the ES&S board and the ES&S trips.

"It's great that the auditor general is going to look at it," Councilwoman Linda McClosky Houck said, adding she hopes he takes "a good, hard look at if it's appropriate" for county election officials to go on trips funded by voting machine companies and to serve on company boards.

Contact the writer:

mbuffer@citizensvoice.com

570-821-2073, @cvmikebuffer