News

November 21, 2009

County commissioners certify election results

Elections Bureau conducted a recount of votes cast for state Superior Court.

By Sherry Long slong@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

The 2009 general election results were certified Friday afternoon by Luzerne County Commissioners after being presented by Elections Bureau Director Leonard Piazza.

Commissioners also recounted and re-canvassed votes under the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s order during a elections bureau election meeting Friday.

Before Commissioner Stephen Urban voted for the certifications he asked for clarification from solicitor Neill O’Donnell to see if he could even vote because Urban had family members who sought seats during the election.

“I don’t believe at this point it represents a conflict because we are basically certifying and ratifying the official tabulations or questions before the board,” O’Donnell said by speaker phone because he was unable to attend the meeting in person.

Piazza’s office conducted a recount of the Luzerne County votes cast for state Superior Court on Thursday as required by the state.

The results of the recount are that: Robert Colville lost one vote for 18,647; Kevin Francis McCarthy picked up one vote for 21,392; Anne E. Lazarus lost one vote for 22,344; Teresa Sarmina stayed the same for 19,057; Judy Olson picked up two votes for 28,117; Sallie Mundy stayed the same for 28,588; Temp Smith picked up one vote for 17,082; Paula Ott picked up one vote for 23,406 and Marakay J. Rodgers lost two votes for 5,769. Superior Court ballots cast on the voting machines had no discrepancies, but there were a few discrepancies on the absentee ballots due to voter error, Piazza said.

An inspection of the absentee ballots should there were errors because “one person used white-out which caused an error on the voting machine….There stray marks on portions of the ballots,” he said.

Urban later asked questions about the Inspector of Elections for Wilkes-Barre’s Wards 5 and 14 because in each ward three people were listed on the official roster of winners, instead of two people.

Piazza made note of it saying it was most likely just a typographical area. Before the official roster is sent to state officials he said his staff will be going over the roster again and would check which two of the three candidates received the most votes.

Write-in ballots for jury commissioner showed Robert Kadluboski received 78 votes; David Yonki received 21 votes and Greg Gulick received 21 votes. Another 209 write-in votes were scattered with various people being listed.

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