Local voter turnout for Tuesday’s primary around 30%
By TAYLOR BROWN
tbrown@yourmvi.com
While thousands of voters headed to the polls across the state Tuesday, precincts around the Mon Valley reported low voter turnouts compared to the general election in November.
All four counties that make up the Mon Valley reported about 30% voter turnout.
Acting Secretary of State Veronica W. Degraffenreid said while that may seem low, it’s about average for municipal elections. She called Tuesday’s primary a successful, fair election, although some counties had trouble with ballots.
“With fair weather across the commonwealth, turnout at the polls was typical for municipal elections,” Degraffenreid said. “No-excuse mail-in voting remained popular in this third election since the option first became available to Pennsylvania voters.”
Counties received a total of 820,757 mail-in ballot applications for the primary — 752,798 applications for no-excuse mail-in ballots and 67,959 applications for absentee ballots.
As of presstime, about 85% of the total number of mail-in ballots had been recorded by counties across the state.
Of 926,759 registered voters in Allegheny County, 265,807 headed to the polls Tuesday for a 28% turnout rate.
That number could still change as 14 precincts have not yet reported to the state after poll workers forgot to remove memory sticks containing results from polling places.
Fayette County experienced some problems at the polls, where some ballots were printed without the bar code that would properly align them to be optically scanned.
After being made aware of the issue, some primary ballots had to be counted by hand.
The county ordered additional ballots to be printed with the correct bar code for voters who arrived later in the day. Ballots that were already cast with the missing bar code were secured separately and are being counted by hand, DOS said.
County officials said solutions to the scanning issues were already established and were immediately enacted while the judges of elections at all precincts were contacted.
Sen. Pat Stefano, R-Bullskin Township, addressed the problem via social media on Thursday, calling the mishap “disappointing.”
“I appreciate the concern of those who contacted my office with their experiences and wanted to take the time to let you know what I have discovered and what protocols are being changed,” Stefano said in a Facebook post.
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