A look at election night at the Butler Eagle
It's 10 p.m. on election night, and I looked over to see the city reporter punching numbers into a calculator. Over and over and over.
The precinct report doesn't match the summary report, he told me of the total votes listed on the two reports. We stopped reporting and called the county’s Bureau of Elections, learning that the precinct report for Center Township 2 — one of three precincts for the township — had been posted to the website without the Election Day vote totals listed.
Because of this, the column for “total” matched the column for “mail votes.” The “election day” column had only zeros, a red flag, but not one we immediately noticed in the rush of reading, analyzing and posting election results as soon as possible. We were fortunate enough to have caught and adjusted that before the results of this race were posted online or ran in the print edition.
There's a reason that Tuesday evening election results are “unofficial.” The results of two races included in the May 21 edition of the Butler Eagle appear to reflect different outcomes than initially reported — and how those races look come November may be different yet as the results of write-in votes and provisional ballots are finalized.
In a roundup of results from contested township supervisor and council races, the results reported Tuesday evening were incomplete. The Republican candidate moving to the November election from the Penn Township supervisor race is newcomer Matthew Salina, according to the most updated unofficial election results from the county Elections Bureau.
In a situation that appears similar to the issue we flagged in Center Township, the initial reports referenced by Butler Eagle staff on Tuesday evening included total votes cast in one of the township’s precincts and only the mail-in ballots cast in the other precinct.
With total votes in both precincts, Salina appears to have bested Samuel Ward with 425 votes to Ward’s 366 votes.
Now, however, Ward could move to the November ballot on the Democratic ticket. Elections bureau director Chantell McCurdy confirmed Friday to the Eagle that Ward received enough votes to proceed to the November ticket on the Democratic ballot — if he so chooses. There's a process, which is detailed on the Elections Bureau's website.
In another Butler Eagle article about the winners of two tax collector races, we learned the next day that two names had been transposed by our team, flipping the winner and the loser of the Winfield Township tax collector race on the Republican ballot.
Maisie Miller is moving to the November election in the Winfield Township tax collector race. She received 350 votes compared to her opponent Marla Klabnik’s 202 votes, according to unofficial election results from the elections bureau.
In this race, write-in votes — again unofficially — show that Miller and Klabnik received an equal amount of support on the Democratic ticket. If this fact remains as results are finalized, then a process called casting of lots will determine which proceeds to the November ballot on the Democratic side.
As election night continued, reporters organized the results from the evening into stories, and an editor checked their numbers — even in the case of the tax collector race.
At the end of the day, we are all human. I can promise you, readers, that we're going to make every effort to get it right. I also promise to be transparent about issues when they do arise.
The team at the Butler Eagle is grateful for the graciousness shown by Miller and Salina.
Election nights are always a challenge as reporters and editors wade through a mountain of information on a tight deadline. These results are unofficial on election night for good reason. Careful counting can't be rushed.
All of the reports accessed and used in reporting by the Butler Eagle are accessible to the public at https://butlercountypa.gov/812/Current-Election-Returns.
Tracy Leturgey is the assignment editor of the Butler Eagle. She grew up in Summit Township and graduated from Butler Senior High School. Tracy joined the Butler Eagle staff in spring 2021 after working in Mansfield, Ohio, and Erie.
