Washington Co. must keep looking for email referencing investigation into GOP candidate
Mailer from GOP campaign committee cited county election official as source
The state Office of Open Records is telling Washington County’s government to look harder for an email apparently sent from an unidentified county elections official to a GOP campaign committee claiming Republican state Senate candidate Al Buchtan was under “active investigation” for voter fraud.
The final determination released Friday gives county officials 30 days to perform a more robust search for the elusive email that the Observer-Reporter and Herald-Standard newspapers requested to be released, or they must provide a “detailed” explanation on why it could not be located.
The open records request centers around political mailers sent from the Senate Republican Campaign Committee in the weeks leading up to the May 19 primary that claimed Buchtan was under “active investigation” by the state Attorney General’s office for alleged voter fraud. The mailers cited an “Email by Washington County Election Official” as their source for the information.
Buchtan challenged three-term state Sen. Camera Bartolotta in the Republican primary and lost by a 53.5-to-46.5% margin. Buchtan filed a federal lawsuit July 6 against Republican county Commissioners Nick Sherman and Electra Janis, along with an unidentified election official, accusing them of manipulating the GOP primary to help Bartolotta, who they had endorsed for re-election.
After the federal lawsuit was filed, the newspapers filed an open records request to Washington County asking it to produce the email from the unknown election officials or any other correspondence with the SRCC. The county initially asked for a 30-day delay to review the request, but did not respond by the Aug. 12 deadline and instead asked for an additional extension. The newspapers did not grant that request and instead appealed the “deemed denial” to the OOR to make a final ruling within 60 days.
Through that process, the county released correspondence from Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh referring a request to review Buchtan’s residency to the Attorney General’s office, which he did on April 24. Executive Deputy Attorney General Kristen Heine wrote a letter to Walsh on May 15 – four days before the primary – notifying him that their office would “assume jurisdiction of this case,” according to the documents released. Another letter from Senior Deputy Attorney General John Hamme on Aug. 13 notified Walsh that it had “investigated this matter” and ultimately “declined to file or otherwise pursue any criminal charges” against Buchtan.
It’s unclear how the SRCC had information that there was an “active investigation” into Buchtan to use on political mailers in the weeks leading up to the primary if the Attorney General’s office confirmed receipt of the case only four days before the May 19 election.
Last October, Buchtan moved from his family’s Greene County home near Carmichaels to a Canonsburg apartment as he prepared to run for Bartolotta’s seat in the 46th State Senate District, which includes all of Washington and Greene counties, and part of Beaver County. He voted in last November’s municipal election and was preparing to run in this year’s primary as a resident of Canonsburg.
But his residency was challenged, and the state Commonwealth Court ruled in April that his domicile was actually the Greene County home. Buchtan was permitted to remain on the ballot, but he had to change his election paperwork to reflect that he lived in Greene County.
Because of that, former Washington County GOP chairman Dave Ball asked the county’s elections board – which struck Buchtan from its voter rolls – to investigate his residency and refer the matter to Walsh for a criminal investigation.
While some of the documents between Walsh and the state Attorney General’s office shed new light on the situation, the county produced no correspondence between the elections board – which Sherman, Janis and Democratic Commissioner Larry Maggi are members – or election officials notifying the SRCC of an “active investigation” against Buchtan.
County open records officer Cynthia Griffin signed a sworn affidavit notifying the OOR that she tried unsuccessfully to locate the email. She produced emails from the executive assistants for Sherman and Janis showing they searched for the records but could not find them.
The OOR is now asking Griffin and other county officials to try harder and “explain in sufficient detail what records were searched or how thorough that search was,” or to provide some other proof that the email does not exist.
“The County has not demonstrated that all responsive records have been provided,” the OOR’s final determination states. “Although the County was put on notice that none of the emails and records provided were actually responsive to the Request, the County has not provided any details affirming that it searched for correspondence involving the Senate Republican Campaign Committee as sought in the Request, or in turn, that responsive records do not exist.”
County solicitor Gary Sweat said Monday he had not yet reviewed the OOR’s final determination, but he planned to read it and would speak with Griffin on how to proceed with a more robust search.
The county now has until Nov. 16 to produce the email or explain in detail why it could not be found and what steps were taken to locate it. The county can also appeal the OOR’s final determination to the Washington County Court of Common Pleas within 30 days.