When will the 12th House District special election results be final?
After the Butler County Bureau of Elections met Wednesday morning, Aug. 19, to count provisional ballots and cast in the 12th state House District special election, unofficial results now show Democrat Brandon Dukes as the winner by 97 votes.
The public was invited to watch the computation board count the provisional ballots and complete the first signing to certify the results, beginning at 9 a.m. at the election bureau, 227 W. Cunningham St. in Butler.
Elections bureau director Chantell McCurdy said she was anticipating a larger turnout than usual for the computation board meeting due to increased interest in the special election and narrow vote margin between candidates.
“Every vote matters; this is why we tell people,” McCurdy said Wednesday morning.
McCurdy said she didn’t believe the provisional ballots would change the election outcome. The election bureau reports that Dukes received 8,469 votes, and his Republican opponent, Scott Timko, received 8,372 votes.
McCurdy said the computation board usually meets the Friday after the election, but it was moved to Wednesday due to the interest in the special election.
At the computation meeting, members of the public have the right to object if they feel provisional ballots are being counted unfairly. The board would then make a decision on the objection.
After the Wednesday computation, the board then completes the first signing to certify the results. Candidates then have five business days to legally challenge the count before the board completes the second signing and certifies the results.
The bureau of elections was uncertain on Tuesday night whether a recount would be automatically triggered due to the narrow results. With all precincts reporting, Dukes held a 50.1%-49.6% lead, with 35 write-in votes cast.
But McCurdy said Wednesday afternoon it was the consensus of the bureau’s legal team that because the election was not statewide, an automatic recount was not mandated.
Regardless of if a mandatory recount were issued, Pennsylvania Election Code allows voters to request a recount in their precinct, if they believe there has been an error. Three voters from the same precinct must file a petition with a $50 fee for votes in their precinct to be recounted.
McCurdy said the earliest the results could be certified would be Aug. 27, if there are no challenges to the count.
Poll workers reported steady streams of voters coming in throughout the day Tuesday, McCurdy said. Some precincts in Adams and Cranberry townships had already seen around 100 people by 10 a.m.
“We’re very excited about the turnout,” McCurdy said. “I hope they carry that forward for future elections.”
The unofficial election results on Wednesday afternoon indicate a 32% voter turnout. Of those votes, 11,470 were cast of Election Day and 5,355 were submitted by mail.
This was the first special election in the county since Act 77, which expanded the rules for voting by mail, was passed in 2019 and took effect in late April 2020.
The most recent special election for Butler County was in March 2020 — before the act was effective. In that election, Rep. Marci Mustello won election to fill former Rep. Brian Ellis’s seat. The one before that was in 2012, McCurdy said.
