Apr 27, 2016 4 min read

Counting paper ballots in the Democratic race for a nomination of a U.S. Senate candidate was expected to last until midnight Wednesday and resume today, according to officials in the Washington County elections office.

Preparing the ballots to be optically scanned and feeding them into the equipment for tabulation began Wednesday morning. During a mid-afternoon break, 5,956 were scanned, showing 2,361 votes for former state environmental secretary Katie McGinty; 1,622 for Braddock Mayor John Fetterman; 1,225 for former congressman Joe Sestak; and 411 for retiree Joseph Vodvarka, whose off-again, on-again status as a candidate resulted in the supplemental paper ballot because there was not enough time to add his name to the electronic touch-screens without two weeks worth of testing 750 machines.

“That’s not half of it yet,” Elections Director Larry Spahr said of the process of scanning paper ballots. But the totals “pretty much hold to what happened across the state,” he added.

Fetterman was doing better in Southwestern Pennsylvania than in other parts of the state. According to the Associated Press, with 8,946 of 9,168 precincts reporting, McGinty had 648,087 votes to 498,238 for Sestak, 294,499 for Fetterman and 82,615 for Vodvarka. McGinty, a Chester County resident, will square off in the general election against the state’s junior senator, incumbent Republican Pat Toomey of Lehigh County.

Once the ballots in the U.S. Senate race are tabulated today or Friday, the elections office expects to move on to another Democratic contest in the 46th Legislative District. Elections officials will be opening and counting absentee ballots in the race between former state representative Jesse White of Cecil Township and Collier Township retired Teamster Joe Szpara.

Unofficial results from Washington and Allegheny counties on the Pennsylvania Department of State website show Szpara with 4,516 votes – 50.5 percent – compared with White’s 4,414 votes, reflecting 49.43 percent. The winner of the Democratic nomination will face Republican state Rep. Jason Ortitay in the Nov. 8 election.

Wes Parry, assistant director of elections in Washington County, said approximately 175 absentee ballots were cast in Washington County communities included in the 46th District.

Parry was reluctant to predict turnout April 26, but just over 43 percent of the registered electorate in Washington County cast 56,558 ballots Tuesday. Turnout was better, percentage-wise, among Republicans than Democrats.

Republicans had a turnout of 26,314 of 50,564 registered for 52 percent, while 29,494 Democrats, or 44.2 percent of the 66,780 registered, came to the polls Tuesday.

Clinton, in a race with Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and a relative unknown, San Diego car dealer Rocky De La Fuente, received fewer votes on her party’s ballot than Washington County winner Donald J. Trump did on the Republican presidential ticket.

Clinton received 54.3 percent of the votes cast to Sanders’ 38.8 percent, according to unofficial results, translating to 15,390 votes for Clinton and 11,013 votes for Sanders. De La Fuente trailed with 494 votes, or 1.74 percent.

Trump garnered 60.79 percent of the GOP vote, translating to 15,933 votes, but he also faced more opponents than Clinton. Ted Cruz finished second here with 20.2 percent, or 5,295. John Kasich was third with just over 17 percent, or 4,502 votes, according to unofficial results from the Washington County elections office. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson, who have suspended their campaigns, did not withdraw from Pennsylvania balloting, and they collectively received 356 votes.

None of the Republicans currently on the ballot in the presidential race have run nationwide before this year, but Clinton did better among Washington County voters eight years ago than she did on Tuesday.

In 2008, when Washington County had 185 voting precincts, Clinton carried all but five of them, racking up 30,985 votes to then-U.S. senator from Illinois Barack Obama’s 12,432. This year, as in 2008, Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary. Eight years ago, Democrats were talking about the possibility of a contested convention. Although Clinton stayed in the race until the end, Obama won the delegate count, and Clinton threw her support to him.

Although Republican and Democratic presidential candidates made campaign stops in nearby counties this year, none of them set foot in Washington or Greene counties.

This is in stark contrast to 2008, when both Clinton and Obama campaigned in Washington County, Clinton holding a rally at California University of Pennsylvania and Obama speaking at a Washington & Jefferson College event and mingling with students on campus. Former president Bill Clinton also stumped for his spouse at W&J, the Canonsburg Senior Citizens Center and Waynesburg University.

John McCain, U.S. senator from Arizona, already had the Republican nomination sewn up as the presumptive nominee by the time the 2008 primaries took place in Pennsylvania, although then-U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee were still on the Keystone State ballot.