Nov 16, 2020 6 min read

The vote canvassing in Western Pennsylvania is progressing without issues, political observers from both parties said, despite the unfounded claims by President Donald Trump that his supporters are being barred from viewing the official count.

Even Trump’s most fervent local supporters are applauding the canvassing and mail-in vote counting efforts and praising the elections staffs in Washington, Greene and Fayette counties as they get closer to certifying the count.

Democratic candidate Joe Biden is on track to win Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, which will allow him to secure the more than enough votes needed to win the presidency when the Electoral College meets next month.

“I really think the Washington County process is running really well,” said Dave Ball, vice chairman of the county’s Republican Party. “It takes time. That’s an unfortunate (part) of it. I don’t know any good way to make it go fast. There were a lot of mail-ins that we had to go through, a lot of provisional, which are a function of the number of mail-ins there were.”

In Washington County, the elections board decided 555 provisional ballots of the 1,862 submitted should not be counted. Another 519 were challenged but upheld Thursday, but can be counted Tuesday as long as there is not an appeal. Another 19 provisional ballots are being set aside because the voter originally submitted a “naked” mail-in ballot and used a provisional to vote, county elections Director Melanie Ostrander said.

“We’ve had a good process,” Ostrander said. “We haven’t had any issues.”

Ball said the issues with the provisional ballots can be corrected for the next election with “some educational work” for both voters and poll workers on how to properly fill out the applications.

“A lot of people are hurried and they don’t fill something in, but they’re not fatal,” he said. “They were mostly approved. It’s just another step in the process.”

He feels comfortable with being able to watch how the process is playing out. He acknowledged it’s easier to view the process in smaller counties than in larger ones – such as Allegheny and Philadelphia counties – where hundreds of observers are needed to watch millions of mail-in votes be counted.

“If any observer has had a question, it’s been answered,” Ball said. “We don’t have gates and windows in our canvass room. If you want to roam around, be my guest; just don’t get in the way.”

Ben Bright, the chairman of the Washington County Democratic Party, praised Ostrander and her staff on how they’ve handled the canvass, along with counting the nearly 37,000 mail-in ballots on Election Day. He also praised the county commissioners for providing the resources – 42 temporary workers were brought in on Nov. 3 – to count all of the ballots in one day.

“The process this year was absolutely terrific,” Bright said. “Melanie did an excellent job in all aspects. The counting of that many mail-in ballots was excellent. I think everyone was happy with how it went that day.”

Bright scoffed at Trump’s assertion that there is voter fraud that could change the outcome of the election, or that his observers have not been allowed to view the vote count.

“The poll watchers are absolutely allowed everywhere,” Bright said. “There’s no fraud to the level he’s speaking to, let alone fraud at all.”

Greene County Democratic Party Chairman Greg Ayersman said the process there has been “buttoned up as far as information” getting out to the public. But observers have been given the ability to watch without issues.

“With the people inside there, they’ve said everything is being done properly,” Ayersman said. “I haven’t heard anything, no complaints.”

It’s what he’s come to expect after participating in Greene County politics for the past 35 years.

“I’ve witnessed people in Greene County come in and work professionally, like they’ve been asked to,” Ayersman said. “Everyone worked together. There were no issues. When there was a problem, they worked together to resolve the issue.”

Elections Director Judy Snyder did not respond to an email seeking comment on how the canvassing was proceeding in Greene County. Greene County GOP Chairman Greg Hopkins, who was seen as an observer on Nov. 4 watching the processing of mail-in ballots, also did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.

County elections boards across Pennsylvania are expected to certify the results by Nov. 23 so they can be sent to Harrisburg for an official statewide county.

While Washington County is expected to be done counting this week in order to meet that deadline, the counting continued in Fayette County. Election Director Larry Blosser said they were still sifting through about 2,000 provisional ballots Friday and expected to count more Monday.

“With all of these provisionals, it’s taking us a while to go back and check,” he said. “It’s just going to take us time to get everything done.”

He said the state has asked they complete the process by Wednesday, but he doubted that was possible.

“I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not,” Blosser said.

Bill Kozlovich, chairman of the Fayette County Republican Party, has been pleased with the work, although he lamented how it was taking longer than usual, thanks to the mail-in ballots.

“There’s been no problem; we’ve had people there the whole time,” he said. “Don’t know when it will be completed. It takes time to go through all of them and open them up. We’ve never had the mail-in ballots to deal with, so it’s taking longer than it has in the past.”

But that was just fine for Fayette County Democratic Party Chairman George Rattay, who wants the process to be open and accurate.

“Everything is transparent and above board. I have no problem. Let the democratic process play out, and let the results for everyone to see,” Rattay said.

He noted that Trump won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by fewer votes in 2016 than Biden did this year, but never complained about voter fraud in those specific states when it propelled him to the presidency.

“Donald Trump has to accept he’s not the winner. There’s a winner and loser in every election. He needs to accept that,” Rattay said. “Time for the transition to begin, especially with the pandemic and the economy. We have some issues that are not going to go away, period.”