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Washington County elections website yielded no election night results for special contest

3 min read

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Politicos and potential constituents who were checking the Washington County elections website Tuesday and much of Wednesday for results in the 37th State Senatorial District special election went away disappointed due to a glitch, according to Elections Director Melanie Ostrander.

The earliest returns came from Allegheny County as expected. Democrat Pam Iovino had a lead with the first precinct report, and she never relinquished her position to Republican D. Raja as the night wore on.

Both candidates live in Mt. Lebanon, and Iovino carried her home community, recording her highest percentage in Ward 1, District 2, where she had 80.6 percent of the vote to Raja’s 19.4.

Raja’s best showing in his home community was in his own precinct, Ward 1, District 1, where he held Iovino to 56.7 percent to his 43 percent.

Overall in Allegheny County, Iovino garnered 31,152 votes to Raja’s 26,999.

As the night wore on, some elections mavens held out hope that a strong showing in Peters Township, the sole Washington County community in the 37th State Senatorial District, could swing the race to Raja.

But unless someone called the Washington County elections office to find out what was going on, those totals weren’t apparent.

Neither Washington County’s touchscreen voting machines nor the equipment used to tally votes are connected to the internet.

The uploading of election returns so they are available to the public via the internet is a separate function handled through the elections office and the county information technology department.

At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Throughout Tuesday night, the Washington County Elections website displayed results for zero percent of 12 precincts.

The Observer-Reporter was able to obtain the results from the first two Peters precincts tallied, A-1 and A-3, through a phone call to the elections office.

A worker known as a “rover” was tasked with collecting voting machines and materials including memory cards with the results from the other 10 Peters precincts. The rover was expected to arrive in Washington not long after 10 p.m.

All of Peters Township’s voting precincts had been tallied shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday, and office staff was trying Wednesday to resolve the problem of posting them on the website, which involved an outside vendor. The results published in the newspaper in Wednesday’s edition showed Peters totals without 149 absentee ballots.

The totals for Peters, including absentee and military ballots, were D. Raja, 3,826; Pam Iovino, 2,221; and two write-ins. A handful of people cast blank ballots.

A little more than 34 percent of Peters Township’s 17,525 registered residents cast votes.

“When we uploaded files for posting, we were getting an “error” message,” Ostrander said Wedneday.

There were discussions with the vendor, Teleosoft Inc. of York, York County, that handles the task, but the vendor’s representative said the firm had never experienced this before.

Ostrander sent two emails containing Washington County’s results to the Pennsylvania Department of State, the first without absentee ballots and the second with absentee ballots, and these, along with results from Allegheny County, were included on the Department of State website.

Washington County was able to display results on its website at mid-afternoon Wednesday.

Unofficial cumulative results from both counties on the Department of State website show Iovino the victor with 33,373 votes to Raja’s 30,825.

Seven provisional ballots cast in Washington County will have to be evaluated by the canvass board.

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