Washington Township supervisors address long Election Day lines

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com

Washington Township officials shed some light on why lines were so long on Election Night at the municipal building.
Several Washington Township voters told the Mon Valley Independent they stood in line for three to five hours in the cold to vote Nov. 3.
Frank and Glenda Basista, Preston Williams and several other voters on Election Night also said they wanted to know why the Washington Township Volunteer Fire Company social hall was not the polling place location as it has been during previous elections.
Those residents think more people could have fit inside of the polling place at one time if it were held at the social hall.
Voters also complained the township building parking lot was not large enough to accommodate all of the voters, who were forced to park their cars along busy Route 201.
Supervisor Jan Amoroso said fire department officials sent a letter to the Fayette County Elections Bureau prior to the 2020 primary stating they wanted more money to host the polling place.
“The election bureau only pays $75 to anybody in Fayette County (that hosts a polling place),” Amoroso said. “(The fire department) said if they didn’t get more money, they would not have it there.”
She said the discussion went back and forth for a while, and ultimately the Fayette County Elections Bureau decided not to use the township VFC social hall as the polling place.
Amoroso said she stayed at the polling place until the last voter, who got in line a few minutes before the polls closed at 8 p.m., cast his ballot on Election Night.
That was at 12:15 a.m.
She said the Judge of Elections had to drive the results to Uniontown. They got dropped off around 2 a.m.
Amoroso said there was a bigger voter turnout in the township for the general election.
“We had 1,176 people voting that day. That was the total count, which is double what we get generally,”Amoroso said. “You still had the same workers who would have been working at the fire hall that worked here.”

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