Allegheny County certifies 2,300 mail-in ballots without dated envelopes

The Allegheny County Board of Elections certified roughly 2,300 remaining ballots on Wednesday, the same day the state Supreme Court declined to reconsider its ruling that the votes be counted.

The roughly 2,300 ballots at issue had been challenged by Republican state Senate candidate Nicole Ziccarelli of Lower Burrell, who is seeking to unseat incumbent state Sen. Jim Brewster, D-McKeesport, in the 45th Senatorial District that includes parts of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.

The Allegheny County mail-in ballots in question did not have a date written by the voter on the outer envelope, but were otherwise deemed to be qualified and had been time-stamped when they were received.

The state Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the ballots could be tallied. The following day, Ziccarelli filed an emergency application for reargument, which the state Supreme Court denied Wednesday afternoon.

As of mid-Wednesday afternoon, election results from Allegheny and Westmoreland counties showed Brewster clinging to a 73-vote lead in the race.

Westmoreland County Elections Bureau Director JoAnn Sebastiani said Tuesday that 3,700 provisional ballots — some cast in the 45th District race — remained to be added to county’s results because of legal challenges. Election results on Westmoreland County’s website were last updated late Tuesday afternoon.

The state Supreme Court wrote that the missing dates were a technical violation of the Election Code but did not warrant disenfranchising thousands of voters. On the back of the envelope for mail-in ballots, voters are told to write the date, their address and sign and print their name.

More than 100 public comments were entered via email, many of which alleged the undated ballots were “illegal,” while others seemed to confuse a written date on the envelope with a postmark. The ballots in question had their envelopes time-stamped when they were received, meaning it could still be determined when they were received. This batch of ballots did not contain any that were received via mail after Election Day.

The county board voted 2-1 to certify those ballots, with board member and county Councilman Sam DeMarco casting the “no” vote. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who chairs the board, and board member and Councilwoman Bethany Hallam voted to certify. DeMarco is Republican, Fitzgerald and Hallam are Democrats.

“This certification here is to certify votes that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that, even though they weren’t in the letter of the law as written by the legislature, they went ahead and ruled that they could be counted, correct?” DeMarco asked.

County solicitor Andrew Szefi broke in to reiterate the court order.

“At the end of the day, what the order says is that this category of undated ballots be counted,” he said.

A Commonwealth Court order issued Wednesday morning prohibits the state from certifying any further results, but county solicitor Andrew Szefi said Allegheny County is not a party to that case.

“It does prevent the state from certifying further results. That is not what we’re doing today,” he said. “We don’t certify winners and losers, we just certify our count.”

The board on Monday certified the county’s election results except for those at the center of pending litigation. DeMarco voted against certification, later calling his vote a protest vote meant to “bring attention to a broken and flawed process that needs to be addressed going forward.”