Nov 4, 2015 4 min read

A count of absentee ballots in the Washington County commissioners’ race – in which Republican Mike McCormick holds a 67-vote lead over incumbent Democrat Harlan Shober – was postponed until Thursday morning.

A computer issue that prevented the elections office from accessing a database delayed the count that was to begin Wednesday afternoon, said Larry Spahr, elections director. As time passed, it became apparent a count could not be completed Wednesday in the Courthouse Square elections office, where ballots are placed one at a time into a scanner, which is a lengthy process.

Absentee voters, including six who experienced last-minute emergencies, cast 815 ballots for the Nov. 3 election. There were also 121 provisional ballots in which voters’ validity as residents was scrutinized.

There was some question about Washington County’s procedure regarding the tabulation of absentee ballots and where they are counted.

The state Election Code states “absentee ballots shall be canvassed immediately and continuously without interruption until completed after the close of the polls on the day of the election in each (precinct).”

“It is not unusual for absentee ballots to be counted after the fact,” wrote Pennsylvania Department of State Deputy Press Secretary Kaitlin Murphy in an emailed response to a series of questions. “County counting of absentee ballots varies. However, all ballots need to be counted before the county certifies its totals.”

McCormick declined to speak on the record Wednesday at the elections office.

“I’m prepared for whatever happens,” Shober said Wednesday after a meeting of the Washington County Prison Board.

Commission Chairman Larry Maggi, a Democrat who was running as part of a slate with Shober, was the top vote-getter with 30 percent. Diana Irey Vaughan, a Republican, finished second with 25.9 percent of the vote, leaving the third seat on the commission up for grabs as election night wore on.

There was an unusual twist to what was happening behind the scenes late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

Boston’s midnight ride of Paul Revere has become the stuff of legend, and with a commissioner’s race hanging in the balance on election night, Washington County now has the midnight ride of Stevie Baka.

Granted, it’s hyperbole, but those monitoring election results may have wondered why Washington County’s returns were stuck at 175 of 176 precincts until the wee hours of Wednesday with Shober and McCormick running neck and neck.

Word went out ’round the Courthouse Square office building late Tuesday a touchscreen’s memory card bearing results of voting in California Borough was missing. This typically results in a search to retrieve a card that was inadvertently left inside a voting machine.

That wasn’t the case. A California judge of elections had the card, according to Wes Parry, Washington County assistant director of elections, in his pocket at his home.

The judge was unable to drive to Washington to deliver the card, so the elections office dispatched Baka, a temporary worker who has manned several elections during the touchscreen era as a “runner” to do just that: hotfoot it down to the Mon Valley to get the card so its information could be downloaded and possibly decide who would become the third man on the Washington County commission’s three-member board.

Shober, seeking his second, four-year term, had been leading in election returns all night, but the race for the coveted third seat flipped shortly before 11:30 p.m. when 13 precincts – including one in McCormick’s home community of Peters Township – were tabulated.

At that point, the lead for the third flipped, and McCormick leaped ahead of Shober by exactly 100 votes.

Baka was on the road by 11:50 p.m.

“He made good time, too,” Parry said. “The round trip only took an hour and 20 minutes.”

With Democrat Larry Maggi leading the ticket throughout the night and Republican Diana Irey Vaughan running a close second, a victory for McCormick would return a Republican majority to the Washington County commission for the first time since 1999.

This is the second time that Shober’s commissioner race has gone into extra innings.

When he first sought the office as a Democratic nominee in 2011, he led Republican opponent Bill Northrop Jr. by 386 votes on election night. There were 1,182 absentee ballots to be counted four years ago, a process that took two days. When it was over, Shober had a lead of 435 votes over Northrop.