While elections aren't error-free, rigged outcomes are a fantasy, Westmoreland commissioner says

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett knows about winning — and losing — a gubernatorial election.

On Tuesday night, Corbett gave a sobering assessment of the nation’s electoral process, just 62 days before the presidential election.

“There is no such thing as a perfect election,” Corbett told more than 100 people who attended a 90-minute program on election integrity at Saint Vincent College in Unity.

Since the 2020 election, the courts have become more involved in disputes involving the election process. Last week, the state’s Commonwealth Court ruled county election boards cannot disqualify mail-in ballots for a missing or incorrect handwritten date. In a 4-1 ruling, the court determined that rejecting those ballots violates a person’s voting rights.

“If democracy is truly working, we don’t need much in the way of courts,” said retired U.S. District Judge Robert Cindrich, who sat on the federal bench in Pittsburgh after serving as a U.S. Attorney.

To Cindrich, the courts’ involvement in election issues is troubling.

“It’s an indication of the political failure of democracy,” Cindrich said.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, which is responsible for ensuring the integrity of the electoral process, will respect the court’s decision, said Robert Beecher, deputy policy director for the Department of State.

One of the problems the state is facing in the upcoming election is that 70 election officials in 40 of the state’s 67 counties have left their job since the 2020 election, putting new people in critical roles for this presidential election.

“Even minor errors can be construed as a malicious act,” Beecher said.

Westmoreland County Commissioner Ted Kopas said the county follows a set procedure that secures mail-in ballots with teams of workers involved in the mail-in ballot counting process that helps to keep the system secure.

There may be human error that occurs from people working around the clock on Election Day in a pressure-packed environment, but a conspiracy to rig the election as some have claimed is a fantasy, Kopas said.

“These are the charges that no one on this panel (of four), regardlesss of title, can solve,” Kopas said.

Kopas, who has been in elective office as a commissioner for 11 years, has seen political campaigns grow increasingly negative.

“It’s gotten really mean. It’s gotten ridiculously mean,” said Kopas, who has been on both the winning and losing side of an election.

Westmoreland County Elections Director Greg McCloskey acknowledged there is more attention paid to his office at this presidential election than other elections, but that has not changed their procedures, he told TribLive prior to the program.

“We really don’t do anything different for this election than any other election, because we do this all the time,” McCloskey said.

There are a number of safeguards to prevent any election fraud from occurring and multiple steps taken to secure an accurate count of the ballots and the voting machines, he said.

“We have people watching us, the poll watchers, the authorized representatives there to make sure everyone follows the law,” McCloskey said.

The post-election audits are conducted to make sure everyone gets to vote who legally can vote and everyone’s vote gets counted, McCloskey said.

“More people want to challenge the process. … We will stand up to those challenges. The presidential election is our Super Bowl,” McCloskey said.