Jul 7, 2026 By Mike Jones 5 min read

Defeated state Senate candidate Al Buchtan is suing the Washington County Board of Elections and its two Republican commissioners over claims that county officials manipulated the GOP primary by allegedly spreading falsehoods that he was under investigation for voter fraud.

The lawsuit filed Friday at the federal courthouse in Pittsburgh claims the county’s elections board and an unnamed official were “working in concert with the Pennsylvania State Republican Party and the Senate Republican Campaign Committee” to influence the campaign.

The federal lawsuit claims county officials “leveraged their governmental power to help their political ally” in state Sen. Camera Bartolotta and tried to “fend off an anti-establishment primary challenge” by Buchtan’s insurgent campaign against the incumbent. Buchtan challenged the three-term Republican incumbent senator in the May 19 primary, but Bartolotta defeated him by a 53.5-to-46.5% margin in the costly and hotly contested race for the GOP nomination for the 46th state Senate District that includes all of Washington and Greene counties, and the southern sliver of Beaver County.

“While the Defendants’ unlawful efforts may have paid off politically – through their improper and unconstitutional acts, the Defendants helped Bartolotta win the primary election – Buchtan brings this case to vindicate his constitutional rights and to take a stand against unlawful, cynical election interference by the Commonwealth’s political elites,” the lawsuit states.

Two mailers and a mass text sent from the Senate Republican Campaign Committee to GOP voters claimed that Buchtan was “under active criminal investigation” by the state Attorney General’s office for voter fraud. Buchtan voted in Washington County in the 2025 general election despite assertions from his critics that he was still living at his primary home in Greene County at the time. The message and mailers, which were sent less than a month before the primary, cited an “email by Washington County election official” as the source of the information.

But Buchtan’s attorneys who filed the lawsuit said that there is no evidence that the attorney general or any other law enforcement entity open an investigation into his voter registration.

“Thus, the representation was made either with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless indifference to the truth or falsity of the representation,” the lawsuit states.

Republican Commissioners Nick Sherman and Electra Janis – both of whom endorsed Bartolotta in the primary – are named as defendants in the lawsuit, along with a “John Doe,” who is listed as an unknown elections official. Democratic Commissioner Larry Maggi, who is also a member of the elections board, is not named in the lawsuit.

“They’ll find out who it is,” Buchtan said in a phone interview Monday about who sent an email to the SRCC alleging he was under investigation. “Our main goal is obviously to clear my name of these lies, but also to make sure this doesn’t happen to other people.”

The Observer-Reporter and Herald-Standard newspapers filed an open records request late Monday afternoon asking the county to produce any emails between county officials and the SRCC in April when the alleged correspondence would have taken place.

A spokesman with the attorney general’s office declined to comment on whether there was ever an active investigation into Buchtan’s voter registration. Janis and county solicitor Gary Sweat declined to comment on the lawsuit since they had not formally received it as of Monday, and Sherman did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.

Buchtan’s lawsuit also accuses Washington County election officials of improperly removing him from their voter rolls after a state Commonwealth Court judge determined his domicile was at his primary residence in Greene County and not at a rental house in Canonsburg. While the lawsuit contends that county officials did not properly notify him of the change, they previously said during an April 23 elections board meeting that he was sent a letter explaining the situation and offered him a chance to challenge the decision. The lawsuit incorrectly claims Buchtan was unable to vote in the May 19 primary even though he registered in Greene County shortly after being removed from Washington County rolls and voted in his home county, according to election records.

Buchtan said Monday that there are more lawsuits in the works after the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and the Win For PA political group also sent mailers during the primary falsely claiming he instituted a new tax while a member of the Carmichaels Area School Board.

“There’s a lot to come,” Buchtan said. “This is just the beginning.”

The federal lawsuit is asking for unspecified compensation and attorneys fees. Buchtan is being represented by Pittsburgh-based attorney Michael Comber and lawyers with the Missouri-based James Otis Law Group LLC, which has a history of litigating political issues involving Republican causes, and is also representing President Donald Trump in his legal battle with journalist E. Jean Carroll.