Shober jumps ahead in commission race; more votes to count
Election office officials and representatives of Washington County commissioner candidates watch as the absentee ballots are counted Thursday. On Monday, 121 provisional ballots will be tallied.
Incumbent Washington County Commissioner Harlan Shober leaves the courthouse Thursday after Washington County President Judge Katherine Emery denied Republican challenger Mike McCormick’s request to temporarily stop the count of absentee ballots.
Incumbent Washington County Commissioner Harlan Shober, left, and challenger Mike McCormick stand outside a courtroom during a break in the hearing on McCormick’s request to postpone the absentee ballot count.
County Commissioner Harlan Shober looks through the window into the room where the absentee votes were being counted Thursday.
Washington County President Judge Katherine Emery denied the request from Mike McCormick’s attorneys to temporarily stop the count of the absentee ballots. McCormick, shown here, started the day with a 67-vote lead but ended it 36 votes behind incumbent Commissioner Harlan Shober.
Incumbent Democratic County Commissioner Harlan Shober erased a deficit against Republican challenger Mike McCormick in a count of absentee ballots Thursday, but the counting isn’t over.
McCormick went into Thursday holding a 67-vote lead from Tuesday’s balloting, but after the 815 absentee ballots were tabulated, Shober enjoyed a 36-vote advantage. However, there are still 121 provisional ballots that need to be counted, and that is scheduled for Monday.
On Thursday, seven people squeezed into a 16½- by 9½-foot room filled with electronic equipment to watch several hours’ worth of optical scanning.
“I think there were a lot prayers raised,” Shober said after learning of Thursday’s unofficial results. “And I just looked at it like, whatever is to be is to be. God has his own way with our lives. We still have to finish the process, but I’m more optimistic than I was a day ago. I’d rather be up a few votes than behind a few votes. It’s like a ball game. There’s always a winner and a loser. The people that voted, their votes were counted. Their voices were heard.”
The totals now have Shober at 16,575 votes and McCormick at 16,539, 22.02 percent versus 21.97 percent.
Before McCormick exited the elections office, he said, “A lot of people worked really hard today and put a lot of time and effort into this process. We’d like everybody to know we appreciate the work and the effort they did today. It’s great to see the process in action. We’re going to go home and plan our next strategy. We have the provisional votes coming up, and we’re planning on going at it again next week.”
The absentee ballot count began at mid-morning Thursday after Washington County President Judge Katherine Emery denied a request by Sean Logue, an attorney for McCormick, to delay the count.
Logue filed an injunction request, claiming the chain of custody of the absentee ballots had to be determined to ensure no fraud occurred.
The ballots are sent with the rest of the election materials to the precinct in which they are cast on Election Day.
While the state election code states absentee ballots are to be counted immediately after the polls close at a precinct, in Washington County they are returned to the county elections office and counted after the election.
The Pennsylvania Department of State said such a procedure is not unusual.
The injunction request also questioned the chain of custody of a memory card from a California precinct that a judge of elections inadvertently had forgotten was in his pocket. When it was discovered to be missing late on election night, an elections worker had to be dispatched to the Mon Valley community to retrieve it so its votes could be counted.
Logue, in a court document, called the chain of absentee ballots’ custody “hazy.” Joseph Zupancic, Shober’s attorney, on Thursday bristled at “the suggestion that somehow the election process in Washington County is not proper or that there were lots of irregularities. … There are things in place to address anything that comes up.”
Logue also wanted the count of absentee ballots to be conducted by the canvass board, a nine-member group on which each commissioner traditionally has three appointees, rather than in a special count Thursday. The canvass board is scheduled to be sworn in Friday morning.
In allowing the count to take place, Emery also ordered that as each absentee ballot was counted and scanned according to elections department procedure, an identification number or marking was assigned to it.
Logue asked for the identifications in case of later challenges.
“I’ve never seen, in an absentee count, where anybody absolutely ran away with it,” said Larry Spahr, Washington County elections director. “The difference could be that you have four candidates.”
Democrat Larry Maggi and Republican Diana Irey Vaughan, both incumbents, already have secured seats on the commission.
The absentee-vote totals for all the candidates were Maggi, 458; Shober, 384; Irey Vaughan, 322; and McCormick, 281. Those casting ballots can vote for no more than two candidates, but the top three vote-getters are seated on the board of commissioners. The rationale, Spahr said, is to guarantee minority-party representation.
In the last three commission races, Republican totals have been increasing. Former Peters Township councilman Mike Neville lost to incumbent Democrat Bracken Burns in 2007 by 2,376 votes. Four years ago, with an open seat on the commission, Peters resident Bill Northrop Jr. lost to Shober by 435 votes.
Countywide, voter turnout was 31 percent in 2011. This year, it increased to 32.68 percent, according to an election summary report.