Ballots being mailed for District 12 special election
Beginning Thursday, July 23, or Friday, the Butler County Bureau of Elections will send about 6,000 mail-in and absentee ballots to voters for the Aug. 18 special election for the 12th District seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
Republican candidate Scott Timko and Democratic candidate Brandon Dukes are running in the special election for the remaining three-and-a-half months of former state Rep. Stephenie Scialabba’s term. Scialabba stepped down from her seat at the end of March.
Whoever wins the seat will hold it until the end of the year. Timko and Dukes will square off again in the November election for a full two-year term.
After the elections bureau mails out the ballots, more will be mailed out daily as applications are received, Chantell McCurdy, election bureau director, told Butler County commissioners Wednesday.
She said military and civilian overseas ballots for the special election have already been mailed out. Her staff will begin removing the names of deceased people from the voter registration roll now that the bureau has received death notifications from the state Department of Health.
Logic and accuracy testing of voting equipment for the special election found no anomalies and the equipment will be delivered to the 27 voting precincts in the 12th district, McCurdy said.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Aug. 18 for the special election.
In addition, the commissioners appointed Karen Barbati, Ruth Crotzer and attorney Patrick Casey to the computation board for the special election.
Commissioner Kevin Boozel said he received an email Tuesday from an overseas active duty serviceman seeking information on voting.
McCurdy said active duty and bedridden service members can apply to have ballots emailed to them, but they have to print the ballots, fill them out, seal them and mail them to the bureau.
She said the email from the serviceman was forwarded to her Wednesday and she responded. She said he wants to vote via email because he doesn’t have regular access to mail, but she explained to him that voting by email is not allowed by the state.
The serviceman wants the law to be changed to allow email voting for the military, so McCurdy said she forwarded his email to his representative in the 17th district. The 17th district is represented by state Rep. Tim Bonner.
“I wanted to make sure that his concerns were heard as we understand that it can be very frustrating to not have regular access to mail,” McCurdy said.
The federal write-in absentee ballot, dubbed FWAB, is another option for overseas service members, she said. Citizens residing outside the country also can obtain those ballots.
A FWAB has the same layout as a mail-in ballot application, but contains lines for the voter to write the name of the candidate they are voting for and the office the candidate is seeking. The voter can write that information instead of waiting to receive a ballot through the mail and mail it to the bureau. FWABs can be returned to the bureau up to seven days after the election, McCurdy said.
