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Fallowfield voters split on ballot for Congressional district

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“Splitsville” usually refers to a couple that is the throes of a divorce. But the term also could be used to describe the lone voting precinct in Washington County that is divided between two congressional districts.

Those drawing boundaries for the U.S. House of Representatives somehow zeroed in on Fallowfield Township’s 2nd precinct in the village of Van Voorhis when it came to drawing a line between the 9th and the 18th districts.

And while Census Block 1030 in Tract 781700 doesn’t mean much to most people, the 14 voters who live there will be casting ballots in the 18th Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, while the remaining 371 voters in Fallowfield 2 will be part of the 9th Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster of Hollidaysburg, Blair County.

“This is the sole precinct in the county that was split,” said Washington County Elections Director Larry Spahr, whose office handles preparations for and returns from the county’s 184 voting precincts.

Both incumbent congressmen are Republicans. Shuster is running unopposed on his ticket while Murphy has his first-ever primary challenger in former U.S. Senate aide Evan Feinberg, who grew up in Peters Township. Both 18th Congressional District candidates now live in Upper St. Clair, Allegheny County. The winner of this contest will face Democrat Larry Maggi in the November election.

“Before the reapportionment 10 years ago, they did have precinct splits,” Spahr recalled. “That proposed redistricting went to the U.S. Supreme Court on challenge. The Supreme Court denied the plan and said to realign those splits. We prepared a plan 10 years ago that eliminated the precinct splits.

“Nobody challenged the Pennsylvania Congressional reapportionment this time around, so that’s going to stand for the next 10 years.”

The 14 electors who live between Ginger Hill and Bentleyville will vote on an 18th District ballot when and if they go to the polls Tuesday. This means the county elections office has had to prepare four separate ballots – Democratic and Republican for each congressional district – for those who vote at the Otters Club in Van Voorhis.

Delegates to the national party conventions run according to congressional districts, so that list will be different depending on where a voter lives.

“Holy smoke,” said Neill Clark of Pottios Drive when he learned that his congressman will likely be from the Altoona area. No Democrat filed as a candidate in the 9th Congressional District.

Clark and his wife, Dolly, moved back to her family home in Van Voorhis several years ago when he retired as a teacher from Shaler Area School District in the 1990s.

Dolly Bennardini Clark said her father, Louis, was an Otters Club member. When she returned to the area, longtime judge of elections Helen Oreski entrusted her with the keys to the club so she could open it up the weekend before the election when voting machines are delivered.

“Why would you divide the township?” she asked when told of the split precinct in the area that lies between Bentleyville and Monongahela.

Actually, Fallowfield Township has been represented by two different congressmen at least since the 2002 election. Residents of Fallowfield’s 3rd Precinct, who vote at Charleroi High School, have been part of the 18th Congressional District, while Precincts 1 (municipal building), 2 and 4 (fire department) are part of the 12th District.

“Washington County is still part of the 12th until Jan. 3, 2013,” wrote Matthew Mazonkey, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Mark Critz of Johnstown, currently embroiled in a Democratic primary contest against U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire of McCandless. After that date, the realigned district totally bypasses Washington and Greene counties.

Phyllis Varrone is the judge of elections at Fallowfield 2. “I spoke with her the other day about using the two encoders,” Spahr said of the cards that instruct the voting machine which ballot to display.

“Honestly, yesterday was the first I heard about it,” Varrone said earlier this month. “The new district doesn’t have that many people, so I don’t see that it’s going to pose much of a problem.”

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