The Bucks County Board of Elections, which is made up of the Bucks County Commissioners, voted to determine the fate of numerous votes on Tuesday.
The Bucks County Board of Elections met at the Administration Building in Doylestown Borough for nearly two hours to discuss provisional and segregated ballots. They will continue their meeting Thursday at 10 a.m.
The results of the meeting did not settle the too-close-to-call 142nd Legislative District race between Democrat Mark Moffa and Republican Joe Hogan. The county’s unofficial election results, as of Monday afternoon, had Moffa with 15,239 votes and Hogan had 15,353 votes, which put Hogan ahead 114 votes.
Details on some of the ballots rejected by the Bucks County Board of Elections:
The Bucks County Board of Elections voted to accept several hundred segregated ballots that checked out. They also reviewed and accepted and, in some cases, denied ballots where questions were raised or the rules weren’t followed.
In one case, election staff came to discover a husband signed his wife’s ballot and the wife signed her husband’s ballot. It was assumed to be an error and the signature checked out with ones on record, but board rejected the two 2-1 based on state election law.
Bucks County Deputy Solicitor Amy Fitzpatrick reported 21 ballots from Crestview Center in Middletown Township, which is in the too-close-to-call 142nd Legislative District, and 34 ballots a long-term care facility from Upper Bucks County were all delivered by just a few designated agents. They were segregated for discussion by the board.
The Pennsylvania Department of State issued guidance related to long-term care facilities in 2020 and said designated agents that handle delivery of ballots for those who can’t can only deliver one ballot per household. However, Fitzpatrick said, state election law doesn’t say that, and the county’s attorneys believe it is proper to count those ballots as long as designated agent formers were filled out and there were no other problems.
Fitzpatrick said there is no evidence of ballot harvesting or wrongdoing. By her assessment and that of election staff, the designated agents, who worked at the long-term care centers, said they were following the law and also understood household to mean their type of facility because the residents live there in a communal setting.
Harvie noted county officials investigating found the residents at both facilities live in a hospital-like setting and not in individual independent living apartments.
DiGirolamo was in favor of rejecting the ballots over concerns he had.
Harvie said there is no information anything wrong happened, and it appeared the spirit of the law was followed.
“These are people who need assistance and may not have family living in the area. To find somebody they trust, who is an employee, I have a hard time disenfranchising people who are in that situation,” Harvie said.
The Bucks County Board of Elections rejected one ballot from a long-term care center that didn’t have a designated agent form properly signed, while the 54 others were accepted.
The results in the still undecided 142nd Legislative District and 151st Legislative District in Montgomery County are key because their outcome will decide if Republicans will have a narrow majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives or if Democrats will get majority control for the first time since 2010. [Editor's note: since publication, Montgomery County has released new vote totals now showing Melissa Cerrato ahead of incumbent Todd Stephens in the 151st District.]
Election officials still have to count around 275 provisional ballots in the 142nd Legislative District race, according to Bucks County Deputy Communications Director James O’Malley, but some of them will probably be ruled invalid due to objections from candidates or for other reasons.
Democratic and Republican attorneys were on hand for Tuesday’s Bucks County Board of Elections meeting.
The parties are able to appeal the Bucks County Board of Elections’ decisions on ballots to the state courts. Challenges in the courts are expected.
North Penn Now news partner Spotlight PA, citing people with knowledge of ballot challenges from both parties in Bucks County, reported the validity of 20 to 30 ballots that county officials determined to be valid despite having relatively small errors, such as voters signing them only once accidentally, are being challenged.
Also at the meeting, DiGirolamo, a former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives who voted for the 2019 law that allowed for mail-in voting, called for the legislature to iron out issues with the law. DiGirolamo, a Republican, and two Democratic commissioners have called for Harrisburg lawmakers to fix problems and allow pre-canvassing of ballots to begin before election day at 7 a.m.
This article contains reporting from Katie Meyer of Spotlight PA.
See also:
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