7 write-in primary ballots discovered uncounted from Unity polling place, to be counted next week

An unopened envelope containing seven provisional ballots cast at a Unity polling precinct in June was discovered among stored voting equipment more than a month after final results were certified, Westmoreland County officials revealed Wednesday.

Those votes will be opened and counted next week. They could change the outcome of the race to fill three open seats on the county’s Republican Committee from the Roble precinct.

County commissioners and election officials said they believe the ballots likely were placed inadvertently under a blue box beneath a scanner where completed ballots were stored by poll workers on election night and were found when an inspection of equipment was completed last month.

“Our new director and deputy director brought this to our attention. We want the public to know we are not trying to hide this,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said.

Provisional ballots are cast at precincts on Election Day by voters whose registration is in question or when a voter fears a completed mail-in ballot won’t arrive in time to be counted. The county received about 1,200 provisional ballots in June.

Original tallies showed none came from the Roble precinct.

Officials said the return of provisional ballots at the close of the polls on election night were not subjected to proper standardized checks, which prevented county staff from realizing some completed ballots were missing.

Newly hired staff at the county’s election bureau warehouse, starting with the November election, will implement a checklist that will be signed by judges of elections at each precinct when provisional ballots are returned. Once returned, election bureau staff will count all provisional ballot envelopes to ensure there are returns from each precinct, officials said.

“We will put new procedures in place to ensure all materials sent out to the precincts are turned in. This will be more like a chain of custody situation,” Commissioner Doug Chew said.

Officials also cleared the way for the missing votes to be counted and added to results that were certified in July.

Election bureau Director JoAnn Sebastiani said each of the seven ballots were cleared to be counted by a special board appointed Wednesday. That board, which includes two Democrats and two Republicans, will open and count the ballots Sept. 9.

Sebastiani said 16 write-in votes were cast in the race to fill three seats on the county’s Republican Committee, which was the lone contested race on the Roble GOP ballot.

According to results provided by the election bureau, one candidate received three votes, two each received two votes and five candidates each received a single vote.

Bill Bretz, chairman of the Republican Committee, said he remains confident in the county’s ability to properly collect and count votes.

“It speaks to the integrity of the election bureau. This was a potentially embarrassing revelation, so I feel good about the process,” Bretz said.

Bretz, along with his wife, Jennifer, will serve as the GOP representatives who will participate in the count.

None of the Democratic races would be impacted by the missing votes, Sebastiani said.

Westmoreland County Solicitor Melissa Guiddy said the updated vote total could require a county judge to issue an order to certify the revised results.