Voter Hall of Fame: These Pike County citizens show up every November

Eight more Pike County voters have been honored for casting ballots in at least 50 consecutive November elections. These names will be submitted to the Pennsylvania Voter Hall of Fame, following a list of 46 honorees that were entered in 2022.

The longtime voters for 2023 are Ella Eggenberger, Thomas Peifer, Patricia A. Navarro, Robert C. Nied, Betty A. Reaggs, Sandra F. Smith, Jim A. Whittaker and Gregory D. Yetter.

They were announced by the commissioners, Matthew Osterberg, Ronald Schmalzle and Anthony Waldron; Elections Director Nadeen Manzoni; and Elections Chief Registrar Char Scheuermann at the July 19 commissioners meeting.

Ella Eggenberger has voted in 68 November elections without missing.

Eggenberger, who is 95 and lives in Shohola, said she has voted since she was of legal age to vote. "I have been a Republican all my life. I always registered Republican; sometimes I voted for the Democrat," she said, casting her vote for whoever she felt was best suited. Her choice did not always make it, she affirmed.

"Everybody should [vote]," Eggenberger said. "It's your right. You have no right to complain... until you did your best to get the person elected who you thought was best."

Of the 2022 Hall of Famers from Pike County, Centa Quinn had voted the most, 70 times; Marjorie Worzel had voted 68 times.

Peifer, a retired superintendent of Wallenpaupack Area School District, was honored for voting in 54 general elections consecutively. Each of the other 2023 honorees have voted 50 times. This group has voted since soon after the legal age to vote at 18 was established in 1971 by the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“It is my honor and my privilege to be here today and to honor people that have taken part in our democratic process for the last 50 years. We are grateful to have such dedicated voters in Pike County,” Manzoni said. "...That is quite an accomplishment. Life gets in the way. Things come up."

Commissioner Schmalzle added, “We could all learn from a generation that really understands how important it is to vote.”

Honoree Betty Reaggs was a poll worker in Matamoras for many years. Sandra Smith was honored last year for 14 years as judge of elections in Greene Township.

The applications will be submitted to the state and the names of the voters immortalized in the state database as having been entered into the Pennsylvania Voter Hall of Fame. Applicants must have voted in Pennsylvania for all those 50+ consecutive years.

Prior to last year, the Voter Hall of Fame has not had an inductee in Pike County since 1996 due to the amount of work it was to investigate over 43,000 voter records, Manzoni explained. Prior to 1998, they had to meticulously review each individual paper record. With the addition of a part-time staff and scanning voter records into the registration database, they began setting aside all records of those who voted in 1972.

"Then it was much easier to investigate the voting history of those voters. We’ve created our own database so we can now find those voters eligible to be inducted in the future," Manzoni said.

Scheuermann said this year, of the eight who were inducted, two names had been missed last year, and the other six reached the 50-year mark.

The Voter Hall of Fame is designed so that the voters can come forward and attest they have voted at least 50 years, which then needs to be verified, Scheuermann said. Pike County, she added, chose to do the research.

The Voter Hall of Fame only counts November elections, when anyone registered to vote, regardless of party affiliation, may vote. If primary elections were counted, voters registered to a party other than Republican or Democratic, and those unaffiliated with any party, would never be eligible to be inducted since they are not permitted to vote in primaries.

The Hall of Fame lists 404 names for Wayne County and 289 for Monroe County.

For more information visit bit.ly/3YiVjUG.

This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: Pike County honors those voting in 50+ consecutive general elections