Pocono News Section

Glitch Causes Votes Not to Count in Lackawanna County

Glitch Causes Votes Not to Count in Lackawanna County - Friday, November 6, 2009 at 5:49PM EST

Reported by: Eric Deabill
Friday, Nov 6, 2009 @ 05:49pm EST
DICKSON CITY, LACKAWANNA COUNTY - A problem has been uncovered with some of this week's election results in Lackawanna County. As Eyewitness News was first to report, some votes were not counted in two races.

The glitch that was discovered affects only the Scranton Tax Collector's race and the Scranton City Council race.

The official counting of ballots got underway Friday morning in Dickson City.

"We've identified the problem. We're going to recount those vote races and have those votes properly assigned," Director of Elections Maryann Spellman Young said.

The problem specifically affected Scranton Councilwoman candidate Janet Evans and Tax Collector candidate Bill Courtright. The problem was this. No code was ever assigned to either candidate. When someone chose to vote straight party, their vote was not tallied.

"There was a mistake. It was caught. It is going to be corrected but the beauty is, we have the paper trail if necessary. We can go back and hand tabulate those votes," Spellman Young said.

For both candidates, the good news is their vote totals can only go up.

"My main concern is something like this doesn't happen again. It's hard enough to get people out to vote and then if they think 'my votes not gonna count,' it's another reason for them not to come out and vote," Courtright said.

Spellman Young admits the problem should have been caught before the election. It was the software company, Election Systems and Softwares, responsibility to assign proper coding.

The company's contract only last through this election. We asked Commissioner Corey O'Brien if their future could be in jeopardy.

"I think everyone will look at the company but we need to get the results right and make sure the integrity of the process is maintained," O'Brien said.

Roughly 2,000 votes may have been affected by the problem in Lackawanna County.