Winners of Write-In Votes A Mystery for Now

By the end of Tuesday's primary election, hundreds of write-in votes had been cast for three seats on Pine-Richland School Board.

But the winners of those votes will not be known until next week, according to the Allegheny County Elections Division.

The County Return Board is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. Friday to compute and canvass the returns of the primary. It must certify the results to the Secretary of the Commonwealth by June 6.

In the meantime, Pine-Richland Patch spent Wednesday afternoon going to polling places to see the posted results. One polling place -- Trinity Evangelical Church -- did not have results posted.

The race for the Region 3 seat on the school board, which represents part of Richland Township, showed a clear lead for write-in candidates on the Republican and Democratic ballots. 

Region 2 write-in candidate sent out a press release Wednesday morning declaring victory in the Republican primary "based an a preliminary hand-tally of the write-in votes posted at polling locations throughout Region 2."

His opponent, said she is waiting for the official results to be announced by the Allegheny County Elections Division.

Pine-Richland Patch's survey of polling places showed a neck-and-neck race that is too close to call for the Republican ticket. Misback had a lead for the Democratic ballot.

A number of results were not available Wednesday because one polling place, , did not have the results posted for Richland voting districts 2, 7 and 8.

Voters may have been confused about the write-in procedure. 

Pine voting district 8 voters cast 11 Republican votes and 3 Democratic votes for Misback even though she was not running in that voting district. She and Lyons also received votes in Pine voting district 1, though they were not eligible to run in that district.

Another issue that will affect the final results has to do with the way names were written on the ballot.

"If people intend to pursue a write-in effort, it is IMPERATIVE that the name be spelled out exactly , and exactly the same in each case. Including first and last name, middle initial, etc.," according to voting information on the Pine-Richland School District website.

"A single letter of difference causes the write-in to be treated as a separate vote for a separate person. There is no accumulation of even obvious spelling errors, and no after-tally correction available. T. Jones, Tom Jones, Thomas J. Jones, and T.J. Jones would each be treated as a separate candidate and would not tally towards the 10 votes required to secure nomination at the primary."

To recap Tuesday's primary election, five of the school board's nine seats are up for grabs in the fall election:

Region 1: Incumbents Kevin Nigh and Therese Dawson crossfiled as Republicans and Democrats. No other people ran for those seats; Nigh and Dawson easily won the primary election. Region 1 represents part of Pine Township -- specifically voting districts 1, 4, 5, 7, 8. 

Region 2: For the one seat that is open, Christine Misback and Peter Lyons ran write-in campaigns. Region 2 represents parts of Pine and Richland townships. In Pine, that includes voting districts 2, 3 and 6. For Richland, it is voting districts 1, 2, 7 and 8. 

Region 3: Two seats were on the ballot for this region, which encompasses part of Richland Township -- specifically, voting districts 3, 4, 5 and 6. Three write-in candidates emerged in this race -- Laura Ohlund, Ginny Goebel and Robert Wiskemann. Pine-Richland Patch's unofficial tally showed a marked lead for Ohlund and Goebel on the Democratic and Republican ballots.