Preston's election victory up in air
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A continuing review of Tuesday's election results has turned up numerous discrepancies in vote tallies in the 24th Legislative District, placing a question mark over the initial report that Rep. Joseph Preston won a narrow victory over his Democratic challenger, Ed Gainey.
Unofficial results from the district had shown the veteran incumbent with a 96-vote advantage over Mr. Gainey for the nomination. A third candidate, William Anderson, was far behind. But a look back at the returns suggested that many votes in the district may not have been counted in that first, unofficial tally.
"A lot of people went out to vote and their votes weren't counted, and that's a concern,'' Mr. Gainey said yesterday, at the end of hours of double-checking the figures.
Under the scrutiny of lawyers for both Mr. Preston and Mr. Gainey, elections officials spent the day yesterday in a precinct-by-precinct review of vote tallies. By the end of the day they had looked at roughly two-thirds of the voting district. In the vast majority of precincts, there was at least some discrepancy between the list of voters who signed the rolls and the numbers of ballots reported cast in that district.
The review so far hasn't yielded any proof that Mr. Preston was not, in fact, the winner. The parties were attempting to reconcile the total numbers of voters and votes tallied, so the review has not yielded evidence of whether or not the margin may change -- in either candidate's favor. But it has established problems with the initial totals reported in Allegheny County's first experience with its new electronic voting system, adopted in response to the federal Help America Vote Act.
No legislative contest in the county had a margin of victory as narrow as in the 24th. But even if the winners are not in question anywhere else, the patterns in the 24th District suggest that officials may face a significant logistical headache in the task of reviewing and certifying results from across the county.
Heather Heidelbaugh, an attorney representing Mr. Gainey, estimated the total number of discrepancies found so far at somewhere between 120 and 130 votes, enough to reverse the result if they went overwhelmingly for Mr. Gainey. Cliff Levine, representing Mr. Preston, suggested a much lower figure, perhaps 60, but conceded there were widespread apparent inconsistencies.
"We're taking the first look at this system, and we're finding lots of discrepancies,'' Ms. Heidelbaugh said.
"It's premature to suggest that there's anything improper here,'' said Mr. Levine. "We're at the initial stage of a review.''
Mark Wolosik, director of the county's elections division, said that many or most of the discrepancies were likely to be resolved as the review goes forward. One apparent source of error involved the handling of absentee ballots by local elections workers.
Most votes Tuesday were cast on the iVotronic touch-screen machines supplied by Election Systems & Software. That system was chosen by the county a month ago after its first choice failed to be certified by the state. In addition to the touch-screen system, the county's polling places made optically scanned paper ballots available to voters. Initial reports were that roughly 6,000 optically scanned ballots were cast, with about half of those absentee ballots.
On Election Night, the absentee ballots were to have been placed alongside the optically scanned ballots cast during the day. In some cases, however, local officials apparently filed absentee ballots, unopened and uncounted, in envelopes with other election materials instead of with the other paper ballots.
Those ballots are still available to be counted, but recovering them is an unanticipated and unwanted chore for election officials.
There were no indications yesterday that the new touch-screen machines were at fault for the discrepancies.
Mr. Gainey said he wasn't ready to decide whether to seek a formal recount of Tuesday's vote.
"We just want to see how many discrepancies there are," he said, noting that he would consider his options after the review, which will continue Monday.
First Published May 20, 2006 12:00 am
