Aug 16, 2022 3 min read

An agreement has been reached to allow state Rep. Matthew Dowling to remove his name from the November ballot even as the final certification of Fayette County’s primary election remains in legal limbo.

Attorneys for Dowling and the state Department of State agreed during a status conference Monday to allow the candidate to withdraw from the general election, paving the way the county’s Republican Party to select a new nominee for the 51st state House race.

Monday was the final day for candidates to withdraw from the race, although both sides asked Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer to write an order this week allowing for Dowling’s paperwork to be processed after the deadline. The new nominee, who has yet to be named, must be submitted by Aug. 25.

“We’ve been floating in purgatory for a while,” said attorney Russ Giancola, who represented Dowling at the hearing.

Dowling, of Uniontown, won the Republican primary in May against challenger Ryan Porupski for his state House seat in Fayette County, but the three-term legislator announced he would retire at the end of this year following a June 4 crash in South Union Township in which state police said he was driving under the influence of alcohol.

The process for him to remove his name off the ballot was nearly derailed by a lawsuit filed in Commonwealth Court in July by the state against Fayette, Berks and Lancaster counties over their refusals to count mail-in ballots in which the voter did not write the date on the outer envelope. There were only only 52 such ballots in Fayette County – 46 of which were from Democrats and six from Republicans – but the state asserts it cannot fully certify the statewide elections until the uncounted mail-in votes in those three counties are included in the final tally.

With that case still unresolved, Dowling asked the Commonwealth Court to step in to allow him to remove his name from the ballot.

“That’s really not our fight. We don’t have a dog in that fight,” Giancola said while asking for Cohn Jubelirer to write the order to “insulate” Dowling from any potential legal challenges to his withdrawal. “We’d very much like to get that wrapped up in the next day or so.”

Kathy Mullen, the attorney representing the Department of State, said they were fine with allowing Dowling to withdraw despite the Fayette County vote still not be certified by the state.

“Rep. Dowling is kind of caught in the middle of this,” Mullen said.

The meeting before Cohn Jubelirer was held through video conferencing and lasted just seven minutes. She agreed to write an order facilitating the process.

“I also thank the parties for being able to work this out,” she said. “This was very productive.”

Fayette County Republican Committee Chairwoman Michelle Mowry said in an email they will vote Thursday on the party’s new nominee. The committee had initially planned to select its candidate on July 21, but canceled the meeting due to the uncertainty of Dowling’s withdrawal petition. Whoever is selected will face Democrat Richard Ringer in the November general election.