Cambria duplicates ballots for accuracy

EBENSBURG — Cambria County officials decided to duplicate ballots hours after holding a press conference to assure voters their early-morning ballots that couldn't be scanned by voting machines would be counted by hand Tuesday night.

The process of hand counting votes began about 10 p.m., according to Ron Robertson, the county's community development director. At 1:38 a.m., the Mirror received a press release stating the Cambria County commissioners moved to duplicate ballots to ensure every vote was properly counted and accurately scanned. The duplication process allowed for an accurate count and more efficient process, the release said.

According to the release, the duplication process involved "creating a clear copy of each ballot that the scanner can read reliably, without altering the original vote."

Ballots were handled securely by the county's election staff, who checked all duplicated ballots for a final quality check before submitting them to scanners, the release said.

Robertson said the process of hand counting the ballots was "moving extremely slow." Even after "a substantial amount of time" counting the ballots by hand, the county's election office workers were unable to complete vote totals from a single precinct, he said.

In consultation with the Pennsylvania Department of State and the Election Systems & Software Co., "(i)t was brought to the commissioners' attention that duplicating the ballots would make the process more efficient and quicker to get the votes counted," Robertson said, adding all of the county's mail-in ballots were counted as of Tuesday night.

Robertson declined to speculate how many ballots were affected by a reported printing issue that prevented ballots from being scanned before new ballots were ordered and distributed to several precincts Tuesday afternoon. "I know it's a significant number," he said.

Robertson said he does not want to give an estimate on how long it's going to take to duplicate and scan all the ballots, noting the county's goal was to get the results of the state House of Representatives 72nd District race between incumbent Frank Burns, D-Cambria, and Republican candidate Amy Bradley, the president and chief executive officer of the Cambria Regional Chamber of Commerce.

"I do see it going more than today, but I expect the 72nd to be done by tonight," Robertson said Wednesday afternoon. At that time, unofficial results showed Burns leading the race with 8,400 votes, or 55.5%, against 6,662 for Bradley, representing 44% of the tallied votes.

Robertson said there are poll watchers from both political parties monitoring the duplication process, which has "been going good so far," he said. "It's been a very transparent process."

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.