Brownsville mayoral candidate wins challenge
A Fayette County judge has ordered the elections bureau to approve one contested write-in vote for Brownsville mayoral candidate and incumbent Lester Ward, resulting in a tie on the Republican ticket.
While the tie vote could be decided by drawing numbered pills out of a bottle, according to Elections Bureau Director Larry Blosser, such a tie-breaker may not be necessary after Ward’s opponent James Lawver has a similar hearing Wednesday.
Ward, who ran as a Democrat, won the Democratic nomination in the May primary by 19 votes. On the Republic side, according to unofficial tallies, Ward garnered 13 votes — all write-ins — and Lawver netted 14. The write-in vote added Monday tied the men for the GOP nod.
The contested write-in vote omitted Ward’s first name. Both Ward’s attorney, Herbert Mitchell, and the attorney representing Lawver, Gary Altman, agreed that the vote should count if it’s possible to ascertain the intent of the voter.
Although Altman argued that it’s possible that “Ward” could have been a first name, Judge Nancy D. Vernon asked whether there were any other candidates, in the Brownsville mayoral race or any other races in that borough, with the last name “Ward” and it was determined that there were not.
Blosser testified that under the advice of the election bureau’s solicitor, it was the policy of the bureau to count votes which include a first and last name, accepting variations in first names such as “Mike” for “Michael.” Generally, he said, the candidate’s surname must be spelled correctly in order to be counted.
Last week, President Judge John F. Wagner Jr. heard a similar case involving Redstone Township supervisor candidate Michael Cetera, who garnered write-in votes with a variety of spellings of his last name. Blosser noted that contrary to the elections bureau’s standard procedure, Wagner ruled that write-in votes with only the candidate’s last name can be accepted, as well as some of the misspellings that were found.
Lawver will come before Wagner at 2 p.m. on Wednesday to determine whether write-in votes with variations in the spelling of his surname may be counted.