Cambria, Somerset counties plan to begin Senate recount next week

EBENSBURG, Pa. – Cambria and Somerset counties aim to launch state-ordered ballot recounts next week for a U.S. Senate race that has two candidates separated by less than 25,000 votes.

Cambria's Election Board discussed the move Thursday, while finalizing a count on the last of its ballots – provisionals included – to make their Election Day totals final.

Provisional count

In a county where Election Day ballot scanning issues complicated voting and the late-night count – extending in- person voting Nov. 5 to 10 p.m., that created a set of hundreds of ballots for attorneys representing Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and current vote-leader Dave McCormick to examine and challenge during the final counting process this week – even before an official recount begins.

Thursday, both lawyers made their cases over approximately 140 of those ballots, with Casey campaign attorney Mike Adams arguing their 11th-hour challenge was made to rectify election night ballot issues that could have been rectified by local precinct poll inspectors.

That included requiring two separate signatures in a "higher than normal" provisional ballot process that night.

"With voting ... that benefit of the doubt should (side with) the voter," he said, noting the law is designed to enable citizens votes to be counted, when possible.

But McCormick team attorney Zachary Wallen noted that Democrat and Republican representatives were already present for the initial count and previously agreed those ballots should be rejected.

Cambria's Election Board, which includes Commissioners Scott Hunt, Thomas Chernisky and Keith Rager, and Elections Director Maryann Dillon, ended up siding with Wallen in their unanimous vote.

Wallen noted some ballots were filed by voters who weren't registered to vote in Cambria County.

Others had missing signatures or other requirements "insufficient" to be accepted.

The county election board convened at 3 p.m. but had to delay any discussion – or action – until just before 4:30 p.m. because provisional tabulations were still being completed. Six hundred and forty seven provisionals were previously approved Monday.

In other moves, a computation verification of all counted ballots – a prerequisite to certifying an official, final tally – led the county Election Board to fix three sets of scanning errors, the board said.

One involved more than removing 418 "inadvertently double" counted votes in Blacklick Township and 35 more in Johnstown's 17th Ward, Repak said. The audit also showed 31 ballots in a Nothern Cambria South district weren't properly added – a move the board rectified in a unanimous vote Thursday.

Democrat and Republican party representatives were present during the meeting and did not object.

Recount redux

Somerset County Director of Elections Tina Pritts said Somerset's computation board was still in the process of verifying its vote totals and election results for what was unofficially more than 40,960 ballots cast.

She is hopeful that process will be complete in the coming days so that the state-ordered recount on the U.S. Senate race can begin Tuesday.

Once Somerset's recount starts, it should be completed rather quickly, she said.

Guidelines require each ballot to be counted using a different method than was used during the initial Election Day count – but Somerset County has two different types of ballot scanners.

One series of ES&S scanners, DS 200 models, are used by voters in polling stations. They are the scanning machines voters use to insert their ballots once they are finished filling out their ballot.

Because those machines already were used that day to count most of those ballots, a separate, larger scanner – a DS 450 – that is typically used to scan absentees and mail-ins – will be used to scan the Election Day polling station ballots.

The absentees and mail-ins would be recounted by running them through the DS 200 scanners, Pritts said.

That will give both stacks of ballots a fresh count by a different computer scanner to verify the initial results are accurate or flag ballots that might need a closer look, she said.

Hunt said Cambria County also has two different sets of scanners that will enable Cambria to follow the same recount process.

He said ES&S Systems and Software, which is also Cambria County's scanner vendor, has indicated a larger, faster scanner was being set aside for county election officials to potentially use to enable the entire stack of more than 70,000 ballots to be recounted even faster.

That would provide a measure of relief for Cambria County Election workers who have been at the job for well over a week, he said.

Cambria and other Pennsylvania counties have already put the paper ballot-scanner counting system to the test once before statewide, Hunt said.

The previous race had McCormick on the other side of vote total, with the Republican candidate previously seeking a 2020 recount after finishing close behind failed U.S. Senate hopeful and talk show host Mehmet Oz.

"We've been through this process before," Hunt said.

Cambria and Somerset counties both will have to advertise a public notice about the U.S. Senate race recount.

Repak said the hope is to start early next week – before the state's Nov. 20 start-up requirement.

All 67 counties must complete their count by Nov. 26.

Cambria and Somerset officials said that isn't expected to be an issue.

Hunt said the county's decision last week to create scannable duplicates of voters' paper ballot originals will expedite the recount process.

If the board did not take that step, much of the recount process would have been done by hand, he said.