Westmoreland County on pace to finish recount in GOP Senate race on Friday
Westmoreland County election officials said the state-ordered recount of ballots cast in last month’s Republican U.S. Senate primary is on pace to be completed Friday.
About 15 county staffers worked 12-hour shifts Wednesday and Thursday to scan the more than 87,000 ballots cast this spring.
“The worst-case scenario is we won’t finish until early Monday morning,” said Scott Ross, director of the county’s information systems department, which oversees county elections.
State officials ordered the recount last week in the close race between the top two Republican votegetters. Dr. Mehmet Oz holds a lead of fewer than 1,000 votes over David McCormick. The eventual winner will face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who handily won the Democratic primary.
McCormick’s campaign earlier this week asked the state’s Commonwealth Court to order additional hand recounts of precincts in 12 counties, including Allegheny and Westmoreland . According to court filings, McCormick is seeking to have ballots from 29 Westmoreland County precincts individually reviewed and counted.
A court hearing on that request is scheduled for Monday morning in Harrisburg.
For the recount that is underway, county elections staffers are using four digital scanners to again tally ballots cast on Election Day at Westmoreland’s 307 voting precincts. An additional scanner was rented to count mail-in and absentee ballots.
By Thursday afternoon, ballots cast from the county’s 307 voting precincts were recounted, Ross said. The recounting of mail-in ballots is a more involved process that is taking longer to complete, he said.
The state ruled the recount must be finished by June 9.
Rich Cholodofsky is a TribLive reporter covering Westmoreland County government, politics and courts. He can be reached at rcholodofsky@triblive.com.
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