Towamencin candidates address latest ruling on 2023 race

One more court ruling has prompted a near-concession regarding the contentious 2023 election for Towamencin’s board of supervisors.

Incumbent Democrat Kofi Osei and former supervisor Rich Marino both reacted this week to the latest court ruling, denying a challenge by backers of Marino to the election results.

“The court of common pleas, and the commonwealth court, have both ruled that the challenge to the 2023 election was untimely. Pending appeal to the PA Supreme Court, I am going to stay in this seat,” Osei said.

“The result of this is that I will not be returning to the Towamencin board of supervisors,” said Marino.

Last fall, Osei and Marino faced off in an election race that largely centered around the then-supervisors, including Marino’s, vote in May 2022 to sell the township’s municipal sewer system, and resident efforts, led by Osei, since that sale to try to stop it.

Early results from Election Day in November had Marino winning their race by 18 votes, continued counts by the county narrowed the margin to Marino by five, then four votes, before a federal court ruling in mid-November allowing misdated ballots led to an updated count with both candidates tied.

The two drew lots on Nov. 30, with Osei drawing the winning number, and Marino and his backers subsequently filed a series of challenges to that process ahead of the first supervisors’ meeting of 2024 in January, when Osei was sworn in and Marino said he and his supporters would challenge the changing of rules and counting of the six disputed ballots weeks after the election.

In late March, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a requirement to put correct handwritten dates on outside envelopes of ballots, a ruling that Marino called at the time “a first step in undoing an injustice” after a judge changed the rules for counting votes after they had been cast.

On April 8 came the latest, and possibly final, ruling: Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer ruled that Marino’s backers “have not established that they timely filed their petition,” and that “there was no error in Common Pleas denying and dismissing the petition as untimely.”

“The decision by that court dismissed my petition on grounds of timeliness.  We strongly disagreed with this as ‘my’ petition was actually filed by some of the voters in the township,” Marino said following the ruling.

“My legal team worked to explain that because of the delay in certification by Montgomery County, the voters would have no reason to file sooner than they did as they would have no basis to file anything until the lots were drawn. That is not how the law reads and the judge did not accept our argument and thus held the voters of the township to a stricter standard than she held the Montgomery County Board of Elections (which was also late in delaying their certification). In any event, my appeal is over,” he said.

In a post on his Facebook page Wednesday night, Marino elaborated, calling it “an interesting couple of weeks in my quest to return to my seat” on the board of supervisors, referring to the March 27 federal court ruling as “a big victory” that overturned the November district court ruling that allowed the undated ballots.

“By stating that those ballots should have never been counted, the results of the supervisor election would have had me winning by four votes,” Marino said.

“Running concurrently with the federal case was a petition with the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court,” for which briefs were filed in early March and arguments heard on April 3, leading to the April 8 ruling that the petition was not filed in time.

“Ironically, according to both the PA Supreme Court and the Federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the man now sitting on the Board of Supervisors in my place did not win the election,” Marino said.

“Yet he will retain his seat due to a ruling by a federal judge in November that has since been overturned and because our petition, in the eyes of the Commonwealth Court, was filed two days late. Sorry but it just does not seem like a just outcome for the voters of Towamencin. That being said, I am not going to appeal beyond this. Given the makeup of the PA Supreme Court, I have no reason to believe that they would render a verdict any different than that of the Commonwealth Court,” he said. “Unfortunately, judicial interference cost us what would have been a close victory. But there are no regrets serving on the Board of Supervisors nor with the campaign we ran.”

During the April 10 supervisors meeting, Marino commented in person to the board on another topic but not the court cases and recent rulings, and just under an hour later Osei addressed the election ruling at the close of the meeting. In his remarks, Osei said he was “not going to get into a big legal or policy discussion about the effect of misdated ballots on the election, but I do want to point out that the reason that this election was drawn out was because it was close. That’s not a unique feature to PA’s election laws.”

“Even at four votes down, it was not impossible for me to win on a recount, and I was prepared to file for one. So to the extent any petitioner in this township thinks there is legal relief for this election, I support their right to seek it,” Osei said.

“Obviously, there are national implications to these federal decisoins, but I want to  remind everyone that this is local politics. If, for whatever reason, I am unable to stay in this seat, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. I’ll still be involved, and advocate for issues I care about, and I think the same can be said for Rich,” he said.

Osei ended his comments by thanking Marino for his time on the board, and for civil conversations before and during the election and subsequent challenges.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate Rich’s approach to being a supervisor in spite of our policy disagreements. I’ve really enjoyed the vivid discussions we’ve had about our parks, and we’ve been able to come to great consensus through the public input process,” Osei said.

“No matter what the ultimate results of the elections are, I really hope people feel comfortable coming out to these meetings. There are issues in this township I am very sure we can all work together on.”

In his statement, Marino thanked those who voted for him, and who backed the election challenges, and asked that they get involved or stay involved. Marino added that he would still be involved with the township’s sewer authority, its veterans committee, and local baseball programs, and added he’s “also looking forward to doing a little more with my church — and as I look outside…. my lawn sure does need some work.”

Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7 p.m. on April 24 at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Road. For more information visit www.Towamencin.org.

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