Mail-in ballots drive Westmoreland primary voter turnout

Nearly 29% of all votes cast in Tuesday’s primary election in Westmoreland County were submitted through the mail, according to election officials.

Just shy of 18,000 ballots were cast by mail in addition to the more than 44,700 Democrats and Republicans who cast votes in person at the county’s 307 precincts.

Overall turnout was also about 29%, a number that reflected an increase from totals in 2019 that featured most of the same races that appeared on ballots this spring. Voter turnout in the 2019 primary was 24.5%

Mail-in ballots played a role in the increase, according to county election officials. No-excuse mail-in balloting was first implemented in Pennsylvania for the 2020 elections.

Nearly half of more than 30,000 Democrats who cast ballots in the primary did so through mail-in ballots. According to unofficial results from the county’s election bureau, 13,427 Democrats voted by mail.

Just 4,542 of the more than 32,000 Republicans who voted in the primary did so through the mail.

Despite the relatively low number, county Republican Committee Chairman Bill Bretz said the local GOP made better use of mail-in ballots this spring than in prior elections.

“We wanted to improve mail-in voter engagement, and Westmoreland County had the largest percent increase of mail-in voting engagement in the state,” Bretz said.

Overall, just 27% of the county’s 121,628 registered Republicans eligible to vote this spring cast ballots in the primary.

Democrats, now the minority party in Westmoreland County with 92,253 registered voters, had a nearly 33% turnout Tuesday.

“We know how this works,” county Democratic Committee Chairwoman Michelle McFall said of mail-in balloting. “It’s a safe and effective way to vote. We don’t have the numbers, but we have a tool in place where we can outperform and we have to outperform to have success at the polls.”