A top elections official said Monday that “human error” in tracking the results of the May 17 primary election led Pennsylvania to inadvertently certify a county’s vote counts that the state deems to be inaccurate.
The embarrassing revelation came in a filing before the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, where the state is seeking to break a standoff with three counties — Berks, Fayette, and Lancaster — that refuse to include undated mail ballots in their official totals in defiance of guidance from the Department of State. The department, which oversees elections, sued the counties last month, asking a judge to order them to do so.
But in a court filing Monday, Jonathan Marks, the deputy elections secretary, acknowledged that a fourth county, Butler, had also refused to count those ballots — and that the county had notified the department three weeks before the lawsuit was filed.
