The handling of provisional ballots filled Butler County's Bureau of Elections with lawyers Friday.

Challenges to who should and could handle those votes caused several delays in an ordinarily dry post-election meeting of a group called the computational board.

At one point, the throng of county workers and lawyers sat in a courtroom before Judge William Shaffer, who declined to get involved and turned them away to resume arguments in the elections office.

When all was done, a different board opened provisional ballots and read write-in votes, but those votes did not alter results from Tuesday's primary election. A judicial candidate also filed two handwritten documents, both to have certain members of the boards removed.

It began around 9 a.m. when the computational board's meeting was scheduled to begin. Judicial candidate Jennifer Gilliland-Vanasdale and an attorney representing her, Sean Logue, attended and called for one of its members, Gail Paserba, to recuse herself from the board because of a comment she previously made on the Eagle's Facebook page.

In a post addressing the race for Court of Common Pleas judge, Paserba wrote “Remember there are great men and women in this race and we do not want to divide the votes and get this horrible woman into our court system.”

Vanasdale and Logue pointed to it as evidence of Paserba's bias and said she shouldn't be involved in the counting of ballots.

After Tuesday's primary, unofficial results had Vanasdale down by six votes on the Democratic ticket to William “Wink” Robinson. Matthew McCune, another attorney, was present on behalf of Robinson.

The election bureau had 12 provisional ballots left to open and count within seven days of the election.

The initial debates caused a few more lawyers to be called in. Jordan Shuber arrived to represent Paserba. Julie Graham, the county's interim solicitor, recused herself from the judicial race back in February, but was present. Kathleen Goldman drove up from a Pittsburgh appointment to serve as a special solicitor in Graham's place.

When Graham arrived, arguments began again in the waiting area at the elections office. The various lawyers wanted to meet to discuss how to proceed. Vanasdale protested, calling for a court reporter to be present and the media to be allowed in.

“Procedurally, I'm not sure what this even is,” McCune said, referring to the office meeting. “I think this is highly inappropriate.”

And so the whole entourage relocated to a courtroom, where Shaffer weighed in with a court reporter logging an official record. Ballots were placed in the custody of the sheriff.

“Why are we all here?” Shaffer began.

Logue and Vanasdale explained themselves. They also explained that they didn't think Shaffer should be involved at all because Vanasdale is representing someone who is suing the county.

Shaffer told them to submit a written petition outlining their argument.

The room cleared, but Vanasdale and Logue remained and wrote out a petition on a yellow legal pad, which they subsequently filed.

Everyone regrouped in the elections office, where special solicitor Goldman and Shari Brewer, elections bureau director, met in private to discuss how to proceed. The two said they called the Department of State for guidance.

They returned to say that the computational board as a whole wouldn't handle the ballots, and instead the Board of Elections would immediately meet and count the votes. That board is composed of Mark Gordon, Lori Altman and Amanda Feltenberger.

This prompted another legal pad scrawl from Vanasdale and Logue. Labeled “emergency motion,” the new filing called for Altman to not be involved for the same reason as Shaffer. When Logue returned from filing it, he announced that Shaffer had already recused himself from the ordeal.

Goldman said they would carry on.

“I have reviewed the code section and we are following it exactly, and the folks in Harrisburg agree,” Goldman said. “It is what it is.”

And so, finally, the task of opening provisional ballots, determining whether they were valid, and counting them began. Of the 12, seven suffered some disqualifying circumstance, such as an out-of-county registration or an improper party affiliation for the selected ballot.

In the judicial race, two votes came in for Robinson on the Republican side. Matt Fischer received two, one on each major party's ballot.

The Eagle formerly reported that just 11 provisional ballots remained. Brewer said that at the time their count was at 11, but that another was found misplaced in another ballot bag.