Westmoreland debates how to count mail-in ballots that arrived minutes late on Election Day

Westmoreland County election officials said Monday that 375 mail-in ballots delivered to the courthouse nine minutes late on Election Day will not initially be added to the vote totals.

County commissioners, acting as the elections board, approved the start of the process to review and count all 816 ballots that were delivered to the courthouse after polls closed last Tuesday, which the state Supreme Court ruled last month were eligible and legally submitted if postmarked by Nov. 3 and received at county election offices by 5 p.m. Nov. 6.

Hundreds of ballots, however, were just minutes away from arriving on time to be included with the initial count — a situation that had county officials wondering why they were delivered late on Election Day.

Elections Bureau Director JoAnn Sebastiani said the U.S. Postal Service refused to allow county workers to retrieve ballots from the Greensburg Post Office before polls closed. Postal officials explained the ballots arrived late because of a logistical issue and claimed they could not park near the courthouse or find a way into the building, Sebastiani said.

A spokesman for the Postal Service could not be reached for comment.

Just how the county will handle the late-arriving Election Day ballots was before the county elections board Monday.

Jim Antoniono, a lawyer for the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee, argued those 375 mail-in ballots should be included with the Election Day totals.

“I don’t care what party those voters were from, those ballots sat there at the post office for whatever reason,” Antoniono said. “It’s a failure on somebody’s part because someone made an administrative error in getting them here late.”

Attorney Scott Avolio, representing the state Republican committee, said the ballots should be treated the same as other late-arriving votes received at the courthouse last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

“They were here at 8:09 p.m., whatever the reason,” Avolio said.

The status of the late-arriving ballots could impact at least one local race. As of Monday morning, Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli led incumbent Democrat Jim Brewster by 410 votes in the race for the 45th District state Senate seat, which includes parts of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.

Ziccarelli campaign official Ben Wren argued against including the 375 ballots received late with the current vote totals.

“The Supreme Court ruled all of those ballots should be set aside. Nobody can create a third category,” Wren said.

Republican Commissioners Sean Kertes and Doug Chew originally appeared set to hold off on the counting of all late-arriving mail-in ballots over objections from Democratic Commissioner Gina Cerilli.

“The ballots are legal, and there are local races that would be affected,” Cerilli said. “The (Pennsylvania) Supreme Court said those votes should be counted and, if we don’t, you are opening us up to major litigation.”

She also questioned the U.S. Postal Service over its actions on Election Day.

“I don’t know why they waited until the last minute, why they were sitting so long at the post office. Something doesn’t add up,” Cerilli said.

All three commissioners eventually voted to consider all late-arriving ballots as one group.

Commissioners adjourned to the courthouse conference room to review each of the late-arriving mail-in ballots to ensure they were postmarked by the deadline. Ballots deemed legal will be counted, but the totals will not be included with up-to-date unofficial results posted on the county website.

Counts from ballots received on each day will be kept separate from the final results, pending court rulings.

Meanwhile, the counting of about 3,600 provisional ballots started Monday. Seven four-member bipartisan boards will review each provisional ballot cast at the polls on Election Day. Those ballots were used by voters whose initial eligibility could not be immediately confirmed as well as those who requested a mail-in ballot but had not received one by Election Day.

Counting provisional ballots is expected to take several days.

Those that are approved and counted will be included in updated results of last week’s election.