The close competition for state representative in the 117th District will lead to more focus on the upcoming primary election decision-making process of the Luzerne County Election Board.
After all 186 polling places have reported their results, the unofficial results indicate a difference of eight votes between the two Republican candidates for state representative — incumbent Mike Cabell (4,715) and Jamie Walsh (4,723).
However, these results do not include a yet unknown number of votes that need to be examined and then either approved or rejected during the board's decision-making process, including provisional votes at the polling places and mail votes that were flagged for various reasons.
The Democratic nomination for the 117th District is also of interest as it heads into the decision-making process.
No Democratic candidate was listed on the ballot in that contest, and a total of 313 write-in votes were cast.
A write-in candidate would need 300 votes to secure the Democratic nomination — a requirement based on state law and the number of petition signatures necessary to be listed on the primary ballot, as explained by county Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino.
The counting of write-in votes typically happens later in the decision-making process, possibly beginning on Tuesday.
What to anticipate
The decision-making process begins at 9 a.m. Friday on the third floor of the county's Penn Place Building at 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave. in Wilkes-Barre and is set to continue until 4 p.m. It will then resume next week for as long as necessary.
This public process begins with a review of all mail votes with deficiencies, including those lacking required outer envelope voter signatures and inner secrecy envelopes.
The volunteer, five-citizen election board has formalized and enhanced the entire decision-making process to make it more transparent and understandable.
After outlining each mail vote issue and the number of affected votes, the board requests the solicitor to discuss the relevant state law and provide a recommendation. Board members then deliberate on the matter and welcome comments from party representatives before voting on whether to accept or reject votes.
Provisional votes cast at the polling places also need to be verified to ensure the voters were registered and did not also vote with a mail vote. Provisional votes must be placed in a secrecy envelope and then placed in an outer envelope. Three signatures — two from the voter and one from the judge of elections — are required on the outer envelope for the vote to be valid.
Overseas and military votes are also counted during the decision-making process.
Results from accepted votes in the decision-making process are periodically uploaded to the county's online election database at luzernecounty.org so candidates will understand the impact on their vote counts.
After addressing issues with paper mail and provisional votes, the board then focuses on the careful process of counting write-in votes in contests where the total number of write-ins could be high enough for someone to secure a seat.
The county also needs to examine 2% of the votes cast to verify the voter selections were correctly recorded.
Before the board's election certification vote, it's important to have a final check to ensure that the number of processed ballots matches the voter count.
Denise Williams, the Chairwoman of the Election Board, has prepared a detailed agenda outlining the many issues that will be discussed during the adjudication process.
Williams stated on Wednesday that the board meticulously follows all the post-election processes required, spending a substantial amount of time examining each ballot closely.
