BELLEFONTE — Every county in Pennsylvania will soon have a decision to make in regard to election funding.

During Tuesday’s Centre County Board of Commissioners’ meeting, chair Michael Pipe talked about a new funding stream that could potentially help with expenses for local elections. However, the funds come with strings attached, which is making the county mull its decision.

“We’re still learning more. The Department of State and DCED are putting together some informational meetings for election boards, commissioners and our staff to learn more,” Pipe explained. “The application window to apply for the grants is Aug. 1 and it’s going to stay open until the Aug. 15, so we do have some time to look at it.”

The Commonwealth’s funding can be used for a variety of expenses, including for the payment of staff, pre-canvas and canvas mail-in ballots, physical security and transparency costs, post-election procedures required under this act, list maintenance activities, printing of ballots, training costs, payment of staff at polling places on Election Day and security for election equipment.

To receive funding, counties would have to apply and agree to the terms, which are set forth by the state.

One of the big requirements is that counties must begin processing mail ballots at 7 a.m. on Election Day and “continue without interruption” until every mail-in ballot received by that time is pre-canvassed. In counties without the staff on hand to work in shifts, officials would have to essentially work nonstop — in some cases, for days on end — to meet the requirement, raising the likelihood of mistakes.

According to Pipe, Beth Lechman, Centre County’s Director of Elections and Voter Registration, has put together information about the funding.

“Every day, we’re learning a new perspective on it. We will probably take as much time as we need to decide if we’re going to be applying for it or not,” Pipe said.

During the voter registration report, commissioner Steve Dershem noted that numbers have remained steady.

“We haven’t seen a great fluctuation. If you look at this week’s report, we have 11 new voters, which is nothing extraordinary, particularly going into the fall,” Dershem said.

As far as the political parties are concerned, the numbers are close, Dershem said. There are a total of 105,271 registered voters in Centre County. Of those, 44,006 are Democrat and 42,428 are Republican.

“The two major parties are not that far apart,” Dershem said.

The commissioners announced that they will not meet on Tuesday, Aug. 9, so they can attend the CCAP Conference in Lancaster. The Board of Commissioners will meet again at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 2, at the Willowbank Building in Bellefonte. The meeting is open to the public and will be televised live by C-NET.