Westmoreland officials deciding fate of 4K questionable ballots; 3,600 provisional ballots to be counted Friday

Westmoreland County elections officials on Thursday night continued to individually review by hand 4,000 potentially defective mail-in ballots that were set aside earlier this week.

Elections Bureau Director JoAnn Sebastiani said it appears most of those ballots looked at so far have been approved for counting with only a small number found to have been defective. Counting could begin later Thursday night or Friday morning, she said.

“It’s taking longer than we thought,” Sebastiani said.

The questioned ballots were originally segregated during the counting process at the courthouse as the polls opened on Election Day. Elections bureau staffers set aside ballots for various reasons, including those not placed in secrecy envelops, while other potential defects included those that could not immediately be matched to registered voters.

Others had personal information or other markings written on the interior envelopes that put their eligibility into question.

State elections officials have said so-called “naked ballots“ cannot be counted.

Westmoreland County commissioners, who serve as the county’s board of elections, authorized the elections bureau to take a second look at the questioned ballots.

“Each one has its own issue,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said.

Elections staff late Wednesday night finished the initial count of more than 60,000 mail-in votes submitted by Westmoreland County voters. The county issued more than 75,000 mail-in ballots to voters this fall.

Meanwhile, seven bipartisan boards will begin counting 3,600 provisional ballots Friday morning. Each board consists of four members — two Democrats and two Republicans — recommended by the county political parties.

Provisional ballots were cast by voters at the polls on Election Day in cases where eligibility was in question.

Voters who requested mail-in ballots but had not received one by Election Day were advised to vote by provisional ballot.

The now 7,600 outstanding ballots from Westmoreland County have become increasingly important as President Donald Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania over former Vice-President Joe Biden continued to narrow since Election Day.

According to preliminary unofficial results from all voting precincts and mail-in ballots, Trump easily won Westmoreland County with nearly 64% of the vote. He outperformed his totals from four years ago by more than 11,000 votes.

But, Biden made slight gains in the county over what Democrat Hillary Clinton received in 2016.

Trump finished ahead of Clinton by more than 31 percentage points. Biden received nearly 10,000 more votes in Westmoreland County than Clinton four years early and cut the margin to about a 29-point spread.

The additional mail-in votes, along with provisional ballots could cut that gap even further.

Mail-in voting has so far favored Biden by a more than a 2-to-1 margin in Westmoreland County.