Marathon session breaks Westmoreland County election ties

Lucky No. 1 was what Westmoreland election officials wanted to see.

That tiny numbered ball helped to select winners in more than 300 tied races from May’s primary election. Those deadlocks were broken during a marathon session at the courthouse on Wednesday.

For more than five hours elections officials drew lots on behalf of more than 1,600 candidates who received an even number of votes as they sought to fill seats on the local Democratic and Republican committees.

Democrats sought 614 committee seats, one man and one woman from each of the county’s 307 voting precincts. Republicans elected three committee members from every voting district in the county.

Election officials said 157 races on the Democratic ballot and another 177 on the Republican ticket ended in ties that involved write-in candidates. In most of those races, candidates received just one or two votes. Several races had multiple candidates, some as many as a dozen, who finished with the same number of write-in votes.

L. Abraham Smith, a Republican from Unity, was one of 12 candidates who received one vote and finished in a tie for two remaining GOP committee seats in the township’s Whitney precinct.

Smith was the lone candidate to appear in person to watch the tiebreaking process.

“I’m semi-retired and I like to watch the process and see how it’s done. I have the time,” Smith said.

Luck was on Smith’s side. Scott Ross, the director of the county’s information systems department and overseer of the election bureau, pulled the No. 1 ball on Smith’s behalf from a tape-covered glass bottle. The lucky draw made Smith the presumptive winner for a GOP committee seat.

Ross said the county’s role in the tiebreaking process is simply a numbers game. It will be up to the political parties to make a final decision if those winners are qualified to hold the positions on their committees.

A list of winners is expected to be posted on the county’s website later this week, Ross said.

County commissioners, acting as the elections board, are scheduled to meet Friday to certify the results from the party committee races.