Count of absentee ballots could determine GOP judicial nomination
State Rep. Brandon Neuman already has the Democratic nomination sewn up in the race for an opening on Washington County Court.
Whether he also receives the Republican nod – and a “free ride” in November, barring any independent candidates filing for judge in August – could be determined Thursday by a count of 146 GOP absentee ballots.
As of Wednesday, Neuman held a slim, 44-vote lead over his nearest challenger on the Republican ticket, Phil Melograne, 56.
Commissioner Harlan Shober, a member of the Washington County Elections Board, was involved in a similarly tight race during the general election of 2015.
“It could be Landslide II,” Shober joked before his colleague, Commission Chairman Larry Maggi, convened an agenda-setting meeting Wednesday.
Shober was a first-term commissioner, seeking another term, when Republican challenger Mike McCormick of Peters Township held a 67-vote lead after the initial vote-counting on election night.
The counting of absentee and provisional ballots over a two-week period held the key to the race, which Shober ultimately won by 35 votes out of about 38,000 cast.
On Tuesday night on the Republican judicial ballot, Neuman had 2,742 votes; Melograne, 2,698; Kristin Clingerman, 1,988; Charles Kurowski, 943; and Joyce Hatfield-Wise, 676.
The Washington County Elections Office sent out 623 absentee ballots to those who requested them; 475 were filled out and brought or mailed back, including the 146 from Republicans. The rest were from Democrats, but because on his own party’s ticket Neuman holds a 2,158-vote margin over second-place Kristin Clingerman, 329 absentee ballots aren’t enough to change the outcome of the Democratic nomination.
An elections office regular was gathering absentee ballots Wednesday and preparing them for tabulation.
In January, the new judge will take the oath of office as a replacement for former President Judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca, who departed the bench in 2015. The county’s full complement of Common Pleas Court judges is six. Judge Damon Faldowski, appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf last year, declined to run for a 10-year term. Two senior judges have been filling in during the vacancy, and a seventh courtroom and offices were constructed in space used by the law library.
Melograne, a Democrat, was the only one of the five candidates who has experience as a judge. Then-Gov. Ed Rendell appointed him to fill a vacancy on Common Pleas Court due to the death of Judge Mark Mascara in 2010. Peters Township resident Melograne, however, failed to gain a nomination the next year. Neuman, 35, who lives in North Strabane Township, was elected to the state Legislature in 2010, representing the Canonsburg-Washington area.
Common Pleas Court judges are state employees, and the salary for the position is $178,868.