With Lancaster still tabulating mail-ins, Jones leads race for 98th state House

With Lancaster County election officials still counting mail-in ballots, Donegal GOP area chairman and East Donegal Township Supervisor Tom Jones held a significant lead in the race for the 98th state House Republican nomination.

With all precincts reporting in Lebanon and Lancaster counties, Jones received 5,603votes Tuesday evening. Lu Ann Fahndrich, a Mount Joy Borough council member, received 2,838 votes and Faith Bucks, the owner of a Campbelltown chiropractic practice and a South Londonderry Township supervisor, received 2,476 votes.

According to his campaign website, Jones will "take his conservative values of family, faith, hard work and freedom to Harrisburg" if elected. Jones did not respond to calls and emails from the Lebanon Daily News to comment on this story or his campaign.

The seat is currently held by Rep. Dave Hickernell, a Lancaster County Republican who is not seeking re-election. Hickernell has served since 2003.

The winner of this primary will face Democratic candidate Mark Temons in November. Temons is a West Donegal Township resident.

Lancaster County election officials found Tuesday morning that many of their mail-in ballots would not scan because they contained the wrong identification code. Officials faced a similar problem in the 2021 primary with a different vendor who prints the ballots.

BackgroundBallot printing issues in Lancaster County will lead to delayed primary results

Officials said that test ballots before the primary scanned fine. But Lebanon County commissioner chairman Ray D'Agostino said the vendor, NCP, printed the ballots from different files, resulting in the scanning problem. NCP has taken responsibility for the error.

The Lancaster County elections office received more than 21,000 completed mail-in ballots Tuesday morning, according to Christa Miller, chief registrar/chief clerk of elections. Only about a third of those ballots scanned as of Tuesday afternoon.

Officials were still taking in mail-in ballots until polls closed at 8 p.m.

Election workers have set aside the problem ballots, and election workers will remark and scanning all affected ballots.

"We will be doing it in groups of three, so you have a reader, an observer and a writer," Miller said during a press conference. "The reader reads it out, the writer marks it, and the observer is there to make sure that what was on the original ballot is what you are marking and it is not incorrect."

Should the ballot be incorrect, Miller said workers will spoil that ballot and start the whole process over again with a new ballot.

"I trust we can handle this again just as we did last time," Miller said. "We had no issues with it last time. I think both parties were very happy with how it was handled last spring, and we expect to do that again this spring."

Lancaster County election officials said it could take several days before the mail-in ballots are fully scanned and counted. Lebanon County election official have not reported any problems during Tuesday's primary.

Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on Twitter at @DAMattToth.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: East Donegal supervisor leads GOP race for 98th House seat