GOP write-ins may take 2 weeks to tally
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It could be two weeks before Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato know whether they will have Republican opponents in November.
That's how long it could take for county election workers to count write-in ballots as part of the official count. The city Republican Party mounted a campaign for GOP voters to write in the name of businessman Mark DeSantis and County Councilman Matt Drozd encouraged write-in votes for his son, also named Matt.
In the mayor's race, there were 1,408 Republican write-in votes. Mr. DeSantis would need a minimum of 250 write-in votes and must be the highest vote-getter to win a place on the November ballot.
On the county side, Mr. Drozd would need more than 500 votes and must be the highest vote-getter. A total of 3,413 Republican voters wrote in names.
Megan Dardanell, a spokeswoman for the county, said election workers will count write-in votes as part of their normal process of preparing a final count for certification by the elections board. Because almost all write-in votes were done on the county's electronic voting machines, the total number of votes is known but not the individual vote totals, she said.
As part of the count, workers will rule on the voter's intent if names aren't spelled correctly. Observers, who could include opposing candidates, campaign workers or attorneys, can challenge a vote based on spelling or other shortcomings such as no first name or wrong first name, first with elections workers, then the elections board and ultimately in Common Pleas Court.
The city's Republican Party led an organized campaign for Mr. DeSantis, who wouldn't discuss the effort before ballots were cast, so that Mr. Ravenstahl wouldn't have a free ride into office. Mr. Ravenstahl had no primary opposition after Democratic Councilman William Peduto decided he wouldn't run against him because he didn't think he could beat the mayor.
Republicans face a huge voter registration deficit in the city.
Although plenty of write-in ballots were submitted, it's unknown what names were written in. There was no public campaign, but it wouldn't be a surprise if Mr. Ravenstahl's supporters encouraged Republican friends to write his name in so he could avoid the expense of a fall campaign.
The same is true in Mr. Onorato's race. Mr. Drozd admitted his son agreed to have his name written in to hold a place for a legitimate GOP candidate. If he is certified as a write-in winner, the younger Mr. Drozd intends to withdraw from the race, which would allow the party to appoint another candidate.
The county councilman said he believes his son got more than 500 write-in votes, many of them from Ross. But he said he heard Mr. Onorato had been encouraging Republican friends to write his name in.
Ms. Dardanell said the number of write-in ballots in those races isn't unusually high and doesn't seem to be an indication that the county's electronic voting machines make it easier to write in a candidate's name. She noted that with the county's previous lever machines, write-in candidates often issued stickers that easily could be pasted on the ballot.
"The number of write-in votes varies from race to race, based on the efforts of the candidate," she said. "It's an individual thing."
In a related matter, Ms. Dardanell explained a quirk in the vote reporting system.
Unofficial results released to news media on election night showed results with 100 percent of precincts reporting, but the numbers continued to change slightly throughout the day yesterday. In at least one race, the winners also changed.
Ms. Dardanell explained that the 100 percent figure pertained only to votes cast on electronic machines, and didn't include absentee, provisional, military or write-in votes. Those votes are added to the totals as they are counted.
First Published May 16, 2007 11:16 pm
