Allegheny County elections board to hold hearing on provisional ballots

The Allegheny County Board of Elections will convene Saturday for a hearing on hundreds of provisional ballots challenged during review this week.

In all, authorized observers from both parties challenged 705 provisional ballots out of the approximately 17,000 provisional ballots returned. Each ballot will receive a hearing, though ballots challenged for the same or similar issues will be consolidated when possible, county spokeswoman Amie Downs said.

The county has compiled a list of voters whose provisional ballots were challenged.

Challengers will present their case and any evidence or witnesses supporting the reason for the challenge. Counsel for the Election Board will be able to question any witnesses and present its own. Once both sides have been heard, the board will announce its decisions. Appeals on those decisions can be filed through Monday, with appeal hearings scheduled for Tuesday.

The chair of the Board of Elections, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, will preside over the process.

The Return Board also finished processing and counting 731 mail-in ballots received after Election Day and before 5 p.m. Nov. 6. Those ballots were postmarked by Election Day. Of those ballots, Downs said, 708 “clearly (met) the criteria” laid out by the state for accepting ballots arriving after Election Day.

Another 23 either had no postmark or an illegible one, she said, but “based on other evidence, those 23 ballots are believed to meet the court’s criteria.”

Per a court order, the breakdown of those ballots has not been released, nor have they been added to the official tally for any candidate.

In the meantime, all canvassing and pre-canvassing at the Elections warehouse on the North Side has ended. The Return Board will resume its work Monday in the County Office Building, at which point they’ll begin comparing numbered lists of voters to the return sheets of Election Day ballots cast at the polls.