Nov 6, 2013 By Steve Barrett for The 3 min read

WAYNESBURG — A little more than one-fourth of Greene County’s registered voters showed up at the county’s 44 voting precincts Tuesday to cast their ballots for the municipal election.

With no big contested races on the ballot, the election apparently offered little excitement for voters as only 5,533 voters, or 25.06 percent of the county’s 22,079 registered voters, cast votes.

For county sheriff, Brian Tennant ran unopposed on both the Democratic and Republican ballots. Tennant easily defeated two opponents, Erik Ketchem, 40, of Waynesburg and William Lewis, 53, of Carmichaels in the May primary to secure the Democratic nomination for sheriff.

The three candidates filed for the primary when Sheriff Richard Ketchem announced he was retiring after 24 years of service.

Although no Republicans filed for sheriff, Tennant garnered enough write-in votes to secure the Republican nomination, meaning he ran unopposed on Tuesday.

Tennant received 4,891 votes, while a total of 112 write-in votes were tallied.

Coroner Greg Rohanna and Magisterial District Judge Lee Watson ran unopposed in the primary and secured both nominations. Rohanna tallied 4,979 votes and Watson received 1,639 votes.

Rohanna has served as coroner since 1996, while Watson won his fourth term as magisterial district judge, a position he has held since 1996. The magisterial district judge in District 13-3-03 handles civil and criminal matters arising in Carmichaels, Greensboro and Rices Landing boroughs and the townships of Cumberland, Dunkard, Greene and Monongahela.

The unofficial results include votes from the polling places and 136 absentee ballots that were counted on Wednesday.

In the county, there are 3,755 registered Democrats, 6,457 registered Republicans and 514 voters registered with other parties.

The election also featured numerous races for school directors in all five school districts in the the county, as well as for positions of tax collector, auditors, township supervisors, mayors and council members.

Five candidates were vying for four seats on the Carmichaels Area School Board. The winners were Richard Krause (642 votes), Ed McIntire (641 votes), Jason Voithofer (619 votes) and Pete Shlosky (504 votes).

In other races:

David Logan (59 votes) defeated Leslie R. Dulaney (34) for the position of Aleppo Township supervisor; Rodney G. Buttars (66 votes) defeated Sarah Henry (52) for the position of Greene Township supervisor; Tom Flynn (41 votes), Shawn McManis (39) and Todd Perry (37) were elected as Greensboro council members; Raymond Kiger (68 votes) defeated Dennis Blouir (30) for Jackson Township supervisor; Jean Sowden Redman (264 votes) defeated Susan Novak (123) for tax collector in Morgan Township; Lewis C. Fox (180 votes) defeated Marcy Raddish (104) for auditor in Perry Township; Bruce Johnson (80 votes) defeated Burl Hughes (43) for Springhill Township supervisor; and Mary Jane McClure (217 votes) defeated Linda Corfont (158) for Waynesburg tax collector.

School board seats are up for grabs in other school board races because of the high volume of write-in votes. The write-in votes will start being tallied on Friday in the election office.

County election office workers said there no problems reported by voters using the touch-screen iVotronic voting system at the polling places.

The county has been using the iVotronic system since the 2006 primary. The iVotronic machines are similar to the UniLect electronic system that the county had used since 1998 before they were decertified in 2005 by the Pennsylvania Department of State.

County elections director Tina Kiger commended the efficiency of the elections office and the district boards, who she said were well-prepared for the election.

Kiger said the election results were unofficial and said the canvass board is convening at 9 a.m. Friday in the elections office, which is the first step toward officially certifying the results of the election.