Voters in 11 Allegheny County precincts receive incorrect polling place information

Voters in 11 different precincts across Allegheny County will receive letters in the next few days updating their polling places after a mistake was made in the statewide database.

The affected communities include Bethel Park, Braddock Hills, Brentwood, Green Tree, McCandless, Plum, West Mifflin and West View.

County communications Director Amie Downs said Thursday that voters in those communities received letters from the elections division sending them to the wrong polling places.

New letters are to be sent out today.

According to Downs, the polling locations were accidentally transposed by county elections staff in a statewide voter data system.

A.J. Doyle, a Republican candidate for 36th District state representative, said he learned about the Brentwood discrepancy on Thursday afternoon.

“With so much confusion surrounding ballots and polling locations across the Nation, it is imperative that we provide our constituents with the proper information in order to maintain their trust in the integrity of our electoral process,” Doyle said in a news release.

“The letters went out with that information,” Downs said. “So when we learned that, we updated the SURE system, and updated letters will go out (Friday).”

Downs said county officials would also place signage at the affected polling locations to ensure voters know where to go, and additional information would be released by the county on Friday, potentially affecting other areas.

“We’ll reach out to any of the impacted municipalities to help them,” Downs said.

The voter data system in question is the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors, or SURE, an integrated digital system that maintains voter information throughout Pennsylvania.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, in a December 2019 audit of the SURE system, said his office’s analysis identified “tens of thousands of potential duplicate and inaccurate voter records, as well as voter records for nearly 3,000 potentially deceased voters that had not been removed from SURE.”

State election officials said DePasquale was overstating the size of the problem — the errors identified, he noted, only constitute about 1% of the total data. He added that some of the issues his auditors found will be addressed by a new system that will replace the SURE system

The SURE system is more than 15 years old, according to the audit.

Voters can check their registration status and polling location at VotesPA.com.

The following are the accurate polling place and locations for these precincts:

• Bethel Park 08-02: Pathfinder School, 50 Donati Road
• Braddock Hills 00-02: Braddock Hills Senior Center, 2794 Columbia Ave.
• Brentwood 00-01: Moore Elementary School Gym, 3809 Dalewood St.
• Brentwood 00-10: Brentwood Library Lower Level, 3501 Brownsville Road
• Green Tree 00-01: Green Tree Fire Hall, 825 Poplar St.
• Green Tree 00-03: Green Tree Municipal Building, 10 West Manilla Ave.
• McCandless 06-02: Memorial Park Church, 8800 Peebles Road
• Plum 00-04: St. John the Baptist, 418 Unity Center Road
• Plum 00-17: St. John the Baptist, 418 Unity Center Road
• West Mifflin 00-05: West Mifflin High School, Homeville Rd Entrance, 91 Commonwealth Ave.
• West View 00-04: # 3 Engine House, 481 Perry Highway

Paul Reed Ward contributed to this report.