No quick end to Senate race
By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
The outcome of the 45th Senatorial District race may not be known for sure until Allegheny County’s elections division is entirely finished with its work.
The difference between incumbent Democrat state Sen. Jim Brewster and newcomer Republican Nicole Ziccarelli stands at 30 votes, as it has since Thursday night.
There are still votes that will be added to the overall tally in Allegheny County and at this point, because they are provisional votes that have been challenged and those challenges were withdrawn, there is no way to know exactly which district they’re from until they’re counted and uploaded to the system.
Those votes will be processed today and added to the tally and they may or may not be from the 45th District.
There is a hearing set for today about whether the ballots that the Board of Elections voted to count that were complete with the exception of the date should indeed be counted. Because the decision in that hearing is likely to be appealed, those votes will not be counted or added to the tally until or unless the court orders it to be done.
A second hearing today will address provisional ballots that the BOE voted to count during Saturday’s meeting. There haven’t been any appeals on that decision, but the board expects there to be. The court’s decision is also expected to be appealed by either party, and the elections division won’t be able to count those votes until a judge orders it.
Ziccarelli also filed a petition in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court to set aside 2,349 undated mail-in ballots in the 45th District.
Last Thursday, Brewster picked up an additional 1,244 votes in Allegheny County and Ziccarelli added 1,093. That put Brewster ahead by just 30. Brewster’s total vote count between Westmoreland and Allegheny counties stands at 65,811 and Ziccarelli has 65,781.
The 45th District stretches from the Alle-Kiski Valley to the Mon Valley and includes communities in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.
