Westmoreland recount complete; officials say no evidence of widespread errors found

A court-ordered recount of four Westmoreland County precincts completed Monday revealed a three-vote change from unofficial results released last month.

Westmoreland County Election Bureau Director Greg McCloskey said the review of more than 4,200 ballots cast in person on Election Day and ballots mailed in by voters from precincts in Hempfield, Ligonier Borough, Lower Burrell and Loyalhanna found totals that reflected three fewer votes than were originally recorded for Democrats Josh Shapiro in the race for Pennsylvania governor and for John Fetterman in his bid for U.S Senate.

Shapiro and Fetterman both won their statewide races, although both finished a distant second in Westmoreland County behind Republicans Doug Mastriano and Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Harry Smail Jr. last week ordered the recounts after voters in four precincts made claims of potential fraud and misconduct related to the November election.

But the voters presented no evidence backing up allegations that the county’s computerized voting machines and digital scanners that tallied results had shifted votes from the Republican to the Democratic candidates.

On Monday, McCloskey — along with Scott Ross, the director of the county’s computer information systems department that oversees the election bureau — demonstrated how human error by voters on Election Day might have led to unfounded concerns about vote-switching.

Democratic candidates’ names were listed above Republicans on this year’s ballots. State law requires candidates of the sitting governor’s political party to appear on the top line of ballots.

Using a voting machine, they showed how the touch-screen computers mark and record votes. Officials replicated how voters who attempted to record their votes possibly touched a box that sat to the upper left side next to a candidate’s name but mistakenly hit a portion of the candidate’s name that appeared just above.

That process marks the ballot, which is then printed out. The voter is instructed to review their ballot before it is scanned into a separate machine that counts the votes, Ross said.

Voters can make repeated attempts to correct their ballots, which don’t become final until they are scanned.

“We don’t have anything to hide in Westmoreland County. Nobody in that room wants to change votes. They just want to get out by 3 a.m.,” McCloskey said.

Carrie Hamley of Greensburg, the Westmoreland County coordinator for Mastriano’s campaign, said the county’s explanation partially addressed her concerns about potential vote-switching.

“Nobody is alleging fraud or malfeasance, but there are still concerns about how the bar codes are being read. These people had nothing to gain by asking for the recount. This wasn’t frivolous,” Hamley said. “This process really doesn’t get to the heart of the issue.”

Voters in their court filings sought hand recounts of all ballots. Smail ruled state law prevents hand recounts from being authorized without evidence of potential wrongdoing.

Democrat Ron Zera, a judge of elections from Hempfield who watched Monday’s recount, discounted the Republicans’ theory that potential software sabotage could cause recorded votes to be added to a Democrat’s totals.

“It’s beyond my technical skills, but I have no salient response to this bar code-switching idea. There’s no way I think votes were flipped,” Zera said.

County election officials spent Monday recounting ballots — including those cast at the four precincts on Election Day or mailed to the courthouse — through digital scanners.

The recount found all results from the county’s voting machines mirrored the count on Election Day. The recount of the mail-in votes discovered three ballots might have been counted twice, which resulted in the votes that will be removed from the Shapiro and Fetterman totals.

McCloskey said the county will investigate the cause of the original overcount.