Nov 11, 2020 4 min read

The Washington County Election Board will consider challenges of provisional ballots at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in the public room of the Courthouse Square office building.

Melanie Ostrander, director of elections, said the six-member canvass board made up of commissioner appointees has reviewed the majority of the 1,870 provisional ballots cast on Election Day. She estimated the number of ballots challenged by those watching the post-election processing of ballots at “dozens, maybe close to a hundred.”

The Elections Board will have to decide if the challenged provisional ballots are valid if they have what are known as “fatal flaws,” such as lacking proper signatures or failure to use a secrecy envelope.

Voters whose ballots are being challenged have not been personally notified to give sworn testimony, but after the election board meeting, which is expected to last two hours, anyone who is curious about a decision regarding his or her own ballot can call the county elections office at 724-228-6750 after the meeting is adjourned.

Instructions accompanying the provisional ballot note the requirement for the voter’s signature, and the secrecy envelope is used to ensure no one tampers with the ballot.

Any “aggrieved party,” including a candidate or someone whose vote is not deemed valid, can appeal the Election Board’s decision to the Court of Common Pleas.

Challenges of provisional ballots can result in a count of all races, known as a “full count”; a count of some races, known as “partial count”; or, if a ballot is ruled invalid, it is relegated as “no count.”

Partial and no-count ballots are based on the home address of a voter. For example, the vote of someone registered in Pennsylvania would be counted for federal and state offices. Ballots of people who voted in the wrong legislative or state senatorial district would be thrown out for those races affected by a voter’s residency.

In years that they are not running, the commissioners constitute the county election board.

Republicans typically challenge ballots cast by Democrats and vice-versa, on the assumption – not always correct – that votes will align with party registration. For the same reason secrecy envelopes are used for mail-in ballots; no one will know the voter’s actual choice of candidates.

The challenge process was used in the Bud Cook-Steve Toprani race for the 49th Legislative District in 2018, and the Harlan Shober-Mike McCormick race for county commissioner in 2015.

Cook, a Republican, won in the end by a 12-vote margin. A judge decided against the case of Toprani, a Democrat, in December of that year.

Shober, a Democrat, finished the commissioners’ race with a 35-vote majority over McCormick, a Republican who chose not to litigate the results of the vote count that was finalized two weeks after the general election.

Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 5 p.m., was the last day for overseas civilian and military ballots postmarked by Election Day allowed to be counted after the delivery deadline to county elections offices across Pennsylvania.

As of noon Tuesday, the Washington County elections office had receive 147 ballots from members of the military and 42 from overseas civilians.

Ninety-three ballots postmarked by Election Day were received by the office between Wednesday, Nov. 4, and 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6.

Ostrander said six of them were “naked” ballots lacking a secrecy envelope and 93 were counted, but the results have been kept segregated from the election night count due to a legal challenge by the campaign of President Donald Trump to a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling.

“We’re supposed to certify election results by the 23rd of November, but if there are still outstanding court cases, we can’t certify,” Ostrander said Tuesday.

Election night results from Washington County for both in-person and mail-in ballots in the race for president totaled 71,375 for Republican Trump; 44,712 for Democrat Joe Biden; and 1,298 for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen.

Compared with 2016 in Washington County, Trump received 12,131 more votes than in 2020, and Biden garnered 9,795 more votes in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

Voter turnout was heavier in Washington County than in 2016 by a few percentage points. Among other differences, there was no Green Party presidential candidate on Pennsylvania ballots this year, and Washington County voters cast only about 200-some write-ins for president as opposed to more than 800 four years ago.