Carbon certifies votes; no changes in results

The results of the general election in Carbon County are now official.

On Friday, the county election board unanimously voted to certify the results, which also included the write-in votes in all races.

Prior to the vote, Commissioner William O’Gurek, chairman of the election board, outlined everything the election bureau did to verify the result over the last two weeks.

“The process we have undertaken from start to finish or until this point, if it is the finish, was that we initially ... on Wednesday morning released a corrected spreadsheet of the votes that had what we figured to be the accurate count in each of the 51 precincts,” he said. “Let me stress that we believe that the results, as scanned in each of the 51 precincts, were correct. We said that right from the start.

“The problem in tabulating them and compilation of each individual candidate’s total got messed up when it got down here and put into the programmed system that we had.”

He reiterated the process with the initial figures the night after the election, as well as the high speed scan and hand count audit of 29 of 51 precincts.

In addition, as required by law, the canvass of the votes must sample 2 percent of the precincts to spot check the totals. In Carbon County’s case, O’Gurek said the hand count represented a canvass of 57 percent of the votes.

In addition, the high speed scan showed the exact figure that was released on the Wednesday after the election, minus the 358 votes that were later accounted for in the clerk of courts race, as well as a few other minor miscounts that was a result of hand tabulating from the tapes.

“We have three processes where the numbers are exactly the same,” O’Gurek said, noting that results in three of the four processes the county took to make sure the votes were correct, the figures all came out the same.

Lee Becker, chairman of the Carbon County Republican Committee, addressed the board, expressing his happiness for Friday’s action.

“This was a milestone that I am glad it was met,” he said. “We had the confidence in the Dominion equipment as it hoped it would. ... We thought it was going to be good and we have the utmost integrity in mind for this equipment.”

He said that some voters were still apathetic to the new process and the glitch didn’t help, but this action helps restore confidence in the equipment and the election bureau and the process.

He thanked Lisa Dart and Jane Krebs of the election bureau for their service to the voters and the poll workers.

“We are going to be looking out for all of the voters in Carbon County ... and candidates as well,” Becker said.

Following the vote, O’Gurek also addressed that the election didn’t occur without issues, including privacy at the precincts to scanning issues to questioning if ballots were scanned to opening the bags to remove jams and bleeding Sharpies.

He said that the election board cannot do anything about it at this time, but will recommend the new election board, which will be comprised of Commissioner Wayne Nothstein, Chris Lukasevich and Rocky Ahner.

“We need to make the system better and one that people have confidence in because obviously, the voters’ confidence has been shaken with everything,” he said. Dart will respond to every written complaint.

O’Gurek also announced that the casting of lots to break ties in four auditor races will take place at noon on Tuesday in the elections bureau.

Ties for auditor races are in the following municipalities: East Penn Township, Mahoning Township, Lehigh Township and Packer Township.