13K Ballots Still Uncounted In Montgomery County: Here's Why

Norristown PA

04 November, 2021

6:55 PM

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NORRISTOWN, PA — Multiple issues are delaying the tabulation of votes in Montgomery County, officials said, which means projected winners can still not be named in a slew of closely contested races. Some 23,000 mail-in ballots remained uncounted Wednesday and the county was continuing to work through the backlog Thursday, with 13,000 votes remaining at latest count. One of the chief culprits behind the delay is the misprint of some 16,000 ballots that were sent out with only one side on them to voters last month. While all voters received a second, correct ballot, some voters only returned the faulty ballot. Those votes are still being separated and verified. "Affected ballots are subject to a separate verification process that was approved by the Montgomery County Board of Elections and shared with both political parties as well as the Pennsylvania Department of State," the county said in a statement. The second issue is that many ballots are unable to be read by ballot scanners. This typically happens every election with a small number of ballots; however, this year, it's impacting a "higher than usual" number of voters. The county did not clarify exactly why the issue was occurring. "This process occurs during every election as there are various reasons ballots are sometimes unable to be scanned," officials noted in a statement. Meanwhile, every ballot that was not scanned must be recreated by a bipartisan team of workers to ensure every vote is validated and counted. While some races have clear winners, a large number of races are far too close to call given the amount of votes still hanging in the balance. It's leading voters and candidates alike to express frustration. In Perkiomen Valley, the GOP slate in the school board election initially believed it won unanimous election to the school board. The current school board even reached out to who they believed were the presumptive winners to begin the onboarding process. It soon became clear the race could not be called with so many ballots uncounted. "They obviously did not track mail-in ballots correctly," Republican candidate Jason Saylor told Patch in an interview Thursday. "That's the first point of the ineptitude of the county." Elsewhere, the delay in returning votes has led to seesaw of constantly changing leaders, alternately raising and sinking the hopes of campaigns. In the North Penn School Board race, early results were overwhelmingly Democratic, showing a sweep of all four available seats. However, as Tuesday night progressed, GOP candidates surged back into fold, with two Democrats and two Republicans seeing a path to victory. That all shifted again on Thursday as more votes were tallied and Democrats regained the lead in all four seats. "What's clear is the mail-in ballot process has led to great confusion and distrust in the system," the Montgomery County GOP said in a statement issued Thursday. "The Montgomery County Election Board and the Department of State must do better and be held accountable." Officials are hopeful the final results will be tabulated by Saturday. With reporting from Patch correspondent Jon Campisi