Judge denies Ziccarelli’s attempt to disqualify votes

By PAULA REED WARD

Trib Total Media

An Allegheny County judge on Wednesday denied two petitions by Republican state Senate candidate Nicole Ziccarelli to throw out both provisional and faulty mail-in ballots in her challenge against Democratic incumbent Sen. Jim Brewster, D-McKeesport.
Ziccarelli, who was trailing Brewster by just 28 votes Wednesday afternoon in the race that includes portions of Westmoreland and Allegheny counties, filed two separate petitions seeking to have both provisional and mail-in ballots disqualified. Common Pleas Judge Joseph James heard arguments on Tuesday.
Matthew Haverstick, the attorney representing Ziccarelli, said they would immediately appeal to the Commonwealth Court but also expects to participate in a case the state Supreme Court accepted on Wednesday dealing with similar issues out of Philadelphia County.
“We expect his opinion will be reversed on appeal,” Haverstick said. “We think the court’s decision is legally incorrect.”
Votes were continuing to be counted on Wednesday.
Ziccarelli challenged a 2-1 election board vote to count 2,349 mail-in ballots that did not contain a date on the outer envelope. She said that because the date was missing, the ballots did not comply with the Election Code.
Attorneys for Allegheny County’s election board argued that the ballots were time-stamped when they were received, showing that they were submitted by the electors prior to the state-mandated deadline.
In his opinion, James said he agreed with the election board that the date provision in the election code is not mandatory.
“It is well settled Pennsylvania law that election laws should be construed liberally in favor of voters, and that ‘technicalities should not be used to make the right of the voter insecure,’” James wrote.
He said that the ballots at issue are sufficient even without a voter-supplied date because they were processed in the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors online system.

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