Judge Says Pennsylvania Township Cannot Conduct Hand Count of Ballots
A Pennsylvania judge ruled on Election Day that Washington Township can’t conduct a hand count of the 2024 general election results.
On Tuesday, Marybeth Kuznik, the director of the Fayette County Bureau of Elections, filed a petition to stop attempts to hand count ballots after Washington Township Judge of Election Vincent Manetta said that he planned to “remove ballots from the ballot box and audit or hand count the votes cast for each presidential candidate,” according to the petition.
Kuznik claimed in her lawsuit that a hand count or audit of the ballots would violate Pennsylvania law.
Under Pennsylvania law, the process for each precinct’s judge of election is to deposit completed ballots from the polling locations voting machines into a sealed and signed bag, which is then returned to the Fayette County Bureau of Elections — along with the memory card for each voting machine and a copy of the tape showing the total number of votes cast for each candidate. Township judges of elections are not permitted to count ballots by hand or any other manual tabulation.
Shortly after the petition was filed, a county judge ruled in Kuznik’s favor, prohibiting Manetta from conducting a hand count or any other manual tabulation of votes cast for any office. The judge added that if Manetta defies the order, an officer of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department will escort the election materials from Washington Township to the Fayette County Election Bureau to properly count the votes.