May 18, 2007 By The 4 min read

Results from the counting of absentee ballots were released Thursday and they changed the unofficial results of races for Brownsville Borough Council, Brownsville Area School Board and Laurel Highlands School Board. However, the process is far from over and candidates involved in close races will have to wait for at least a week or more to receive the final, official results.

The official recount will begin today and will last as long it takes, probably about a week. Candidates will then have five days to file challenges. After that, the Fayette County Board of Elections will make the results official.

In the Democratic Party race for Brownsville Borough Council, the absentee ballot count dropped Robert Pritts from third to fifth place and out of the race. There are four open council seats.

After Tuesday, Pritts was third with 191 votes. Teresa M. Holt fourth with 184 votes and Charles Russ McMaster fifth with 179. But Holt picked up 33 absentee votes, giving her 217 votes and moving her up to third place. McMaster tallied 27 absentee votes, giving him 206 votes and the all-important fourth nomination. Pritts picked up only 11 absentee votes, giving him a total of 206 votes.

The leading vote-getter James S. Lawver picked up 34 absentee ballots, giving him 297 tallies. John Hosler picked up 30, giving him 256 total votes and a second-place finish.

In the Laurel Highlands School Board’s Region 2 election, incumbent Edward George picked up two Republican votes, giving him a one-vote margin 75-74 over challenger Curtis Jacobs. The two were tied after Tuesday with 73 votes. The leading candidate Angelo Giachetti picked up one absentee vote, giving him a total of 86. Only the top two candidates will go on the ballot for the fall election.

Jacobs defeated George for the second spot in the Democratic election by a 706-547 margin. Giachetti finished first with 813 votes.

In the Brownsville Area School Board, Sandra Chan picked up seven absentee votes to move into a tie for the fifth and final Republican nomination. After Tuesday’s vote, Chan had 85 votes while Andy Dorsey had 86 votes. Dorsey picked up six absentee votes to finish deadlocked with Chan at 92 total votes.

The rest of the order on the GOP ballot wasn’t changed as John B. Harvey finished first with 116 total votes followed by Jeff Bayne and Nena Kaminsky with 111 apiece and Steve Skibo Molnar with 100 votes.

The absentee ballots also didn’t affect the Democratic race as Rocky Brashear still led the ballot with 1,316 votes. He was followed by Harvey with 1,197 votes, Chan with 1,126 votes, Dorsey with 1,065 votes and Francine Pavone with 1,074 votes.

So either way, Chan and Dorsey will be on the Democratic ticket in the fall election. It remains to be seen, though, which candidate will win the GOP nomination.

Several other close elections weren’t changed by the absentee vote count, but they could factor into the official results. Here’s a rundown of those races:

nIncumbent Mark Blair extended his lead in the Democratic Party election for magisterial district judge in Uniontown by 22 votes over Michael M. Metros. In fact, Metros fell to third place behind Ronald Machesky for the nomination. Blair picked up 20 absentee votes while Machesky and Metros collected 17 and five votes respectively. Blair now has a total of 395 votes while Machesky and Metros have 375 and 373 votes respectively. Machesky padded his lead for the Republican nomination by a margin of 151-108 over Gary N. Altman.

nIn the Democratic Party’s election for two seats on Uniontown City Council, incumbents Blair R. Jones and Bob Cerjanec picked up 40 and 28 votes respectively. Newcomer Marlin Sprouts Jr. only picked up 22 votes but that was still enough to preserve his first-place finish with 731 votes. Jones and Cerjanec ended up with 725 and 699 tallies respectively.

nTimothy B. Sandstrom picked up 28 absentee ballot in the Republican race for the Uniontown Area School Board. However, he was still one vote 572-571, behind Vincent Winfrey for the fifth and final GOP nomination. Winfrey had already secured a nomination on the Democratic ballot. Sandstrom finished seventh on the Democratic ticket.

nTammie Finfrock and Joseph Dandrea Jr. each picked up an absentee ballot vote to preserve their winning margins in the Newell Borough Council race. The two Democrats totaled 57 and 56 votes respectively. Colleen Kirk-Fabriziani also added a vote, but she still finished third and out of the running with 52 votes.

nKatherine R. McCarty and Elizabeth M. McCarty each added an absentee ballot vote in their race for three Republican Party nominations to Ohiopyle Borough Council. They finished with 14 and 13 votes respectively. Jeanette Twardesky failed to pick up any absentee votes but still picked up the third and final ballot spot with 11 votes. Joyce Adams also failed to pick up any absentee votes and finished fourth with 10 votes.