Although counted, mail-in ballots initially excluded from some Butler County precinct reports
When the Butler County Bureau of Elections posted its unofficial election night results, some of the individual precinct reports omitted the mail-in ballot results, but the summary report was complete.
The totals listed in the precinct reports for 40 of Butler County’s 96 precincts remained incomplete without the mail-in ballots included on Wednesday, Nov. 5, following the Tuesday general election when the bureau first posted results to the county website.
The summary report correctly included both in-person and mail-in votes from all 96 precincts.
“When the results come in here from the precinct … they have to check the box to include results they got from the precinct but also the mail-in ballots,” said Chantell McCurdy, election bureau director.
She said the errors were addressed with the IT department after they were noticed. The box must be checked when each precinct is entered, she said.
For instance, individuals monitoring the posted results Tuesday evening may have seen the totals from Butler city’s six precinct reports varied from the totals listed on the summary report.
If added up, the totals presented in the six precinct reports indicated a different candidate could claim a council seat than who the summary report showed might win. Two of the city precinct reports were lacking the mail-in ballots, but the summary report was complete and included both in-person and mail-in votes.
Butler County Commissioner Leslie Osche also confirmed the summary reports were complete, including both types of votes.
Osche said the mail-in votes were punched into the summary report before day-of votes were added.
She said the practice began after the 2020 election to instill greater voter confidence. In 2020, distrust arose among voters when the mail-in votes were added after the in-person votes, which made the final results seem different from what many people expected, she explained.
However, Osche said some people are still confused and there is room for improvement.
“I have been a stickler about, ‘look, we have to be able to see the mail-in and Election Day ballots at the same time,’” Osche said.
The incomplete precinct reports were posted for all precincts in Bruin, Chicora, Connoquenessing, East Butler, Fairview, Karns City, Mars, Petrolia, Portersville, Prospect and Seven Fields, and Clay, Clearfield, Clinton, Connoquenessing, Jefferson, Middlesex, Oakland, Penn, Venango and Worth townships.
The incomplete precinct reports also included one precinct in Adams Township, one in Buffalo Township, three in Butler Township, two in Center Township, four in Cranberry Township and two in Zelienople.
The two city precincts were reposted with complete unofficial results by Wednesday morning.
The website included 95 of 96 precinct reports on Wednesday morning. Slippery Rock Township’s results were included in the summary report, but the website did not include its precinct report on Wednesday morning.
The Butler Eagle referenced the summary report on Tuesday evening. The unofficial results reported in the Wednesday edition of the paper included both mail-in and in-person votes.
The results of races still can change because of provisional ballots and write-in votes. On Friday, the election computation board will gather for a public meeting to count provisional ballots and write-ins.
McCurdy said it was mostly a quiet day until the bustle of crunching the election numbers after polls closed. She credited her team with keeping the night running smoothly by following checklists and covering their designated areas.
Like most Election Days, the election bureau received a flurry of calls in the morning and a slight pickup of calls into the evening, McCurdy said.
She added two precincts reported campaigners stood too close to the doorway. Campaigners are permitted to stand 10 feet away from the door to a polling place.
One of the complaints was at the Cranberry Township Municipal Building, which housed precincts Cranberry Township West 2, Cranberry Township West 3 and Cranberry Township West 5, and the other was at the City of Butler 4-1 precinct at First English Lutheran Church.
“You don’t want to impede traffic,” McCurdy said. “You don’t want to impede voters in any way.”
