Westmoreland County elections officials disclosed Monday that 21 uncounted provisional ballots submitted at a North Huntingdon voting precinct on Election Day were discovered last week among computer equipment used at the polls in November.

Elections bureau staffers found the unopened ballots during a routine inspection of voting machines stored at the department’s Greensburg warehouse on Dec. 28.

JoAnn Sebastiani, the county’s elections director, said additional precautions had been enacted ahead of the Nov. 3 election that were designed to prevent the misfiling of ballots returned to the courthouse from the precincts, but those measures were unsuccessful.

“Unfortunately, the judge of elections did not follow instructions,” Sebastiani said.

The discovered provisional ballots were cast in North Huntingdon’s 4th ward, second precinct at the United Methodist Church on Coulterville Road.

Poll workers submitted an empty envelope to elections officials on Nov. 3 at the courthouse that indicated no provisional ballots were cast at the precinct, Sebastiani said. Officials in November processed and counted about 3,800 provisional ballots cast at the county’s 307 voting precincts.

The 21 uncounted ballots were found stuffed under a touchscreen computer during routine inspections of the nearly 900 voting machines and 307 scanners placed throughout the county on Election Day. Those machines, along with 900 bins containing the more than 143,000 paper ballots cast at the precincts on Nov. 3, under the state’s election code were required to remain under seal until Nov. 23.

Those seals were finally broken in December when the inspections commenced.

Inspectors also found properly voided mail-in ballots surrendered at the polls by voters, additional Election Day documents and several county-issued cellphones among the sealed voting equipment, Sebastiani said.

The discovery of uncounted provisional ballots came after county officials instituted a series of measures designed to prevent such a mishap after a similar incident was discovered months after the June primary, when seven uncounted provisional ballots were discovered.

“We have to do better,” Sebastiani said.

Westmoreland County Commissioners on Monday appointed a four-member committee comprised of elections bureau staffers to review, process and count the newly discovered ballots. That work will begin on Jan. 13.

Once counted, the ballots will be added to the final tallies, but will not affect the final outcome of any of the seven races that appeared on the Nov. 3 ballot, officials said.

“We have to count every vote cast because every vote counts,” said Westmoreland County Commissioner Gina Cerilli.

County commissioners, who serve as the county’s board of elections, certified the election results late last year.

Solicitor Melissa Guiddy said the board will reconvene to recertify those results once the additional provisional ballots are counted.

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