Judge upholds election board’s rejection of ballots candidate sought to have counted
Fayette County Judge Ralph C. Warman upheld the election board’s rejection of 18 absentee ballots in the November election Monday.
David Lohr, Republican candidate for county commissioner, had challenged that rejection, asking that the ballots be counted.
Warman’s ruling means the unofficial tally of 8,864 votes for incumbent Republican Commissioner Angela M. Zimmerlink over Lohr’s 8,846 votes will stand, barring additional challenges. The election board is expected to have the first signing of the election certification today.
“Once they sign, the candidates have five days to challenge or do any actions, if they want a recount or anything like that,” said Larry Blosser, director of the election bureau.
Lohr said he hasn’t decided yet if he will file an additional challenge following Warman’s ruling.
“I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. We really haven’t decided on the next step. We’ll see how it goes with advice from my attorney,” Lohr said.
On Wednesday, Lohr’s attorney, David J. Montgomery, asked Warman to count 18 as-of-yet unopened absentee ballots on the basis that they may have been submitted by the Nov. 4 deadline to have absentee ballots turned in. Montgomery initially tried to have 26 of those types of ballots admitted, but during the hearing, withdrew challenges on some because the verification on the back of the ballots were dated after Nov. 4.
Election bureau solicitor Sheryl Heid said during the hearing that the law calls for the absentee ballots to be in the election bureau the Friday before the election to be counted. She said previously that the law does not take into account when the verification was signed — only when the absentee ballot was received at the election bureau.
Montgomery argued that the verification signature on several ballots with unreadable post marks should make them countable and that several others postmarked Nov. 5 in Pittsburgh should be counted because they could have been mailed in Uniontown on Nov. 4 but sent to Pittsburgh to be sorted and postmarked after midnight. Montgomery also argued that two ballots that were returned with postage due should be counted
Zimmerlink was initially ahead by 12 votes, but on Thursday an additional 13 provisional ballots and 29 absentee ballots were counted. That widened her lead to 18 votes.
Those 42 votes were not initially counted because the election board had to rule that they were admissible, and then give a three-day period to anyone who wanted to challenge their admissibility.
Zimmerlink did not immediately return a call for comment.