Nov 7, 2017 2 min read

A political newcomer who forged a path as an independent will be the first new district judge in a four-community area based in Peters Township since the 1980s.

In the magisterial race, Jesse Pettit, 43, an attorney who lives in Venetia, will succeed District Judge James Ellis who was first elected in 1987, by defeating an opponent who had spent many hours in Ellis’ courtroom, including a college independent study.

Ellis was a mentor to Jacob Machel, 29, of McMurray, the sole candidate to appear on the May primary ballot. Unofficial final returns from the Washington County elections office showed Pettit with 3,783 votes to Machel’s 2,998.

Machel defeated write-in challengers from each major party who got into the race after Ellis, in an 11th-hour announcement, publicly acknowledged just hours before the filing deadline that he wouldn’t seek another six-year term in the district that also includes Nottingham and Union townships and Finleyville.

Machel, a Peters Township High School and Washington & Jefferson College graduate works in commercial real estate. Pettit, a Pittsburgh attorney and son of Sandra Hart Pettit and the late Washington County district attorney John C. Pettit, is a former prosecutor with the Philadelphia DA and attorney general’s offices.

Cold weather and rain mixed with occasional sleet dampened the turnout Tuesday, which officials expected to hover in the 20-percent range.

Pettit commended “volunteers who stood outside for 13 hours in the rain and in the cold, and that would be for both sides.”