Westmoreland County rules staff errors won't disqualify provisional ballots

Westmoreland County commissioners on Monday agreed to count dozens of provisional ballots cast at more than 30 precincts on Election Day originally classified as defective based on clerical errors made by county staff.

Sitting as the county’s Elections Board, commissioners unanimously agreed to count ballots cast by voters who received improper directions from poll workers.

“I think there was a lot of changes this year and many of the challenges involved judges of elections who misunderstood a lot of things,” said Republican Commissioner Doug Chew.

The county still is going through the lengthy process of reviewing the eligibility of about 3,600 provisional ballots cast at the polls on Election Day. Voters who requested but did not vote through the use of mail-in ballots or whose eligibility to vote on machines at the polls was in question were allowed to cast paper provisional ballots.

Volunteer bipartisan boards of reviewers have worked since last week hand sorting each provisional ballot to ensure it was properly cast. The county’s board of elections last Friday and on Monday heard challenges to ballots that were rejected by those boards.

Many of the challenges overturned by commissioners on Monday involved voters who cast provisional ballots and also were directed by judges of elections to sign poll books that denote a person used the touch-screen voting system at the polls.

“We know there was mass confusion,” said Republican Commissioner Sean Kertes.

Commissioner Gina Cerilli, the board’s lone Democrat, agreed and said the decision to accept those provisional ballots for counting will not impact future elections.

“No judge of election would allow someone to vote twice,” Cerilli said. “My hope is we can give judges of election proper training moving forward.”

Challenge hearings will continue Wednesday. Officials said a vote to certify the election results is scheduled for Nov. 23.

Through Friday, provisional ballots cast at 128 of the county’s 307 were reviewed. Officials said they expect to be halfway through the review process by Monday night.

Examination of provisional ballots was slowed last week when volunteer reviewers quit after six elections bureau staffers tested positive for coronavirus. A day later, others left the job when some volunteer workers refused to properly wear masks.

More volunteers were added over the weekend, and county employees were drafted to serve on some of the review boards.

Meanwhile, Kertes and Chew said Monday there are no plans to revisit their decision made last week, refusing to take formal votes on the status of two sets of mail-in ballots.

The Republicans on Friday tabled a motion made by Cerilli to count 375 mail-in ballots that were delivered by the U.S. Postal Service to the courthouse on Election Day nine minutes late. That request would have counted those ballots as arriving on time and not part of another nearly 300 ballots that were delivered Nov. 4 through Nov. 6.

State and federal courts have yet to decide if late-arriving mail-in ballots will be added to the election results.

Kertes and Chew also refused last week to consider a request from the Democratic commissioner to count another 343 mail-in ballots that were submitted on time but rejected because they were not properly dated by voters.

Public comments from more than a dozen voters emailed to commissioners over the weekend were read into the record at Monday’s reconvened Elections Board meeting that demanded the late arriving ballots be counted.

So far, no court actions have been filed over the defective and late-arriving mail-in ballots.

Attorney Jim Antoniono, the lawyer for the local and state Democratic committees, said Monday there is a question as to whether any legal challenges can be filed following the inaction by the elections board.

Court challenges have been lodged regarding similar issues in other counties, he said.