Ballot error costly as Westmoreland officials scramble to fix 11th-hour mistake

Westmoreland County paid more than $8,100 for postage to correct errors that appeared on 151 mail-in and absentee ballots sent out to voters in two Mt. Pleasant Borough precincts.

Officials on Monday confirmed the ballots erroneously instructed voters to choose one of two candidates seeking council seats in the borough’s First Ward and Third Ward. In both races, two council seats are to be filled.

“It was a clerical error,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said.

New ballots were mailed to voters, along with a letter dated Oct. 26 that explained the error. Prepaid overnight return postage, at $27.10 each, was included in the package.

In the First Ward, Democrats Diana Lasko and Jim Wojnar are seeking two seats on council. No Republican candidates are on the ballot. In the Third Ward, two candidates for two council seats are Michael T. Barrick, a Democrat, and Cindy Stevenson, who won Democratic and Republican nominations. No one else appears on the ballot for those seats.

New ballots sent to voters reflect changed instructions to vote for no more than two candidates.

“My ballot was mailed in a week before, and I received an email that it was accepted. Last week, I got an email that my ballot was canceled, and two days later I received the new ballot in the mail,” said Loye Eberhart II of Mt. Pleasant. He said he mailed the revised ballot Oct. 29 and received word Sunday it had been processed by the county.

County officials did not publicly disclose the error until asked about it Monday.

“I don’t think we hid it,” Commissioner Doug Chew said.

Commissioner Gina Cerilli Thrasher called the mistake “minor” and said the latest election bureau mishap was far different than the issues that plagued the office last year and during the May primary.

Mail-in ballots this spring had to be resent to Mt. Pleasant voters when a district judge race initially was excluded. Officials later determined that another race, for a seat on the Southmoreland Area School Board, was left off ballots.

Commissioners in June fired the department’s director, JoAnn Sebastiani. She has since filed a federal lawsuit against the county.

“This wording mistake was caught by the election bureau,” Thrasher said about the latest error. “Not one voter contacted the bureau or commissioners to let us know of the minor mistake. Kudos to the bureau for catching the wording error and fixing it in time.”

Scott Ross, the county’s computer information systems director who oversees the revamped election bureau, said Monday that staff discovered the latest error during a routine review of the ballot, and an immediate plan was crafted to notify voters.

Voting machines at the precincts were updated to include the corrected ballots, Ross said.

All mail-in ballots from the two Mt. Pleasant precincts will be segregated and counted separately. The older ballots will only be counted if replacement ballots are not submitted.

“Only one ballot for each voter will be counted,” Ross said.