Nov 28, 2023 By Mike Jones 3 min read

Washington County officials certified the Nov. 7 election on Monday and will send the final results to the state, barring any last-minute challenges.

The 20-minute elections board meeting was merely a formality in the process, although its three members left open the door with conditional approval of the results in case there was a challenge filed before midnight Monday in Washington’s mayoral race.

“Everything went well with the election,” Elections Director Melanie Ostrander said.

No challenge had been filed in Washington County Court of Common Pleas as of the 1 p.m. meeting, which Ostrander said meant they could move forward. However, the board members wanted to add a caveat with conditional approval depending on whether any court filings were submitted before the end of the day.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re free to certify the election results,” Ostrander said.

Losing independent candidate Mark Kennison had filed a challenge earlier this month against Democrat Jojo Burgess in which he and his attorney, Lane Turturice, declared an illegal election due to alleged irregularities at some precincts. However, Kennison withdrew his petition Wednesday just before a hearing to decide the issue after he said he did not believe it was an illegal election, although he indicated he would still be open to a recount. While Turturice left the door open last week for a challenge, Kennison referred to Burgess as mayor while speaking in court, which appeared to be an act of concession.

The other contingency placed within the conditional approval was over a recent federal court ruling that mandated undated and misdated mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania should be counted. The board is still awaiting guidance on whether such ballots should be tallied beginning in the next election or retroactively with this one, which could impact close races.

“I think it should be prospective, unless there was an order (from the federal judge) making it retroactive,” county solicitor Jana Grimm told the elections board.

There are about 100 mail-in ballots from this past election that had such flaws, although Ostrander noted that the elections staff tried to notify those voters so they could cancel their ballots and vote with a new one. She did not know how many voters made corrections to such ballots.

The three members agreed to such contingencies in order to move forward with the unanimous vote certifying the election results. Monica Merrell attended the meeting in person, while fellow board members Diana Irey Vaughan and Todd Pappasergi participated through a conference call. All of them heaped praise on Ostrander and her elections team.

Irey Vaughan thanked Ostrander and the staff, saying they “served with integrity” to ensure a fair election, while Pappasergi and Merrell said they appreciated the opportunity to serve on the board this year.

“Congratulations on a fantastic election,” Pappasergi said.

“It has been a wonderful learning experience for me, personally,” Merrell said about her service on the elections board.

Meanwhile, Ostrander announced that the “casting of lots” for tiebreakers will be held Dec. 8. Candidates who are tied – most of whom received write-in votes for smaller municipal races – will be contacted by the elections office about the process to determine the winner. The most high-profile race with a tie was in East Washington, where Mumbi Mundia and Kent James tied for the final spot on council, with each receiving 249 votes.