Luzerne County counting votes for 117th District race
WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — From your local election headquarters ballots are being organized to be counted here in Luzerne County after Tuesday’s election.
The ballot counting and organizing continued in Luzerne County Friday after Tuesday’s primary election. Dozens of election board workers, count and sort ballots, making sure everyone’s vote counts especially in close races like that for District 117.
People were sworn in to help the board of elections check questionable mail-in ballots Friday that have issues.
“Today we are working on adjudication for the 2024 presidential primaries election we begin with our mail-in deficiencies so ballots identified with a potentially fatal defect the election board is going through and making sure that every vote that should be counted is counted,” said Emily Cook acting director Luzerne County Elections.
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These ballots include ones that don’t have a signature, ballots that have incorrect signatures, wrong dates, no dates, and even ballots that arrived with something wrong with the seal.
“At the end of the day, it is always my and the democratic party’s position that every vote count and the board of election should look at the intent of the voter,” says Thomas Shubilla Luzerne County Democratic chair.
They are looking at the law on the books to determine which ballots can be counted. Two candidates in Luzerne County are keeping a particularly close eye on the counting process in the 117th Pennsylvania House District race the two candidates are separated by less than ten votes. 28/22 News spoke with Jamie Walsh the challenger and a representative for the incumbent mike cabell.
“I feel great. I think anything that happens today is going to increase my lead just because my campaign was out very early on,” added Jamie Walsh (R) PA State Rep. 117th challenger.
“It might as well be tied now, but it’s an eight-vote differential at this point, it would be irresponsible for me to predict one way or another. every single vote is going to matter,” stated Shohan Vance attorney for Mike Cabell PA 117th State Rep. incumbent.
The room they were checking those questionable mail-in ballots here in Luzerne County is sealed up and locked until Monday now out of those questionable Luzerne County mail ballots about 200 of them were accepted and about 100 were rejected.
Right now, Walsh and Cabell are separated by less than 10 votes. About 9,000 votes have been counted so far, now the board will count the accepted mail-in ballots and move on to the provisional ballots to see which ones are eligible to be counted.
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