Lieutenant Governor Recount
By: Ben Manning
Updated: May 26, 2010
ALTOONA, BLAIR COUNTY - Election Day is over and one race is still up in the air.
The Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor is so close it will most likely trigger an automatic recount. Local lawmaker Scott Conklin is in the lead in the Lieutenant Governor primary. But to see if he can hold it, elections officials will have to count every single vote over again.
All the precincts have reported in. But the race is still technically too close to call.
State Representative Conklin is 3,828 votes ahead, but that's less than half a percentage point. Act 97 of 2004 says if an election is that close there's an automatic recount. That means recounting 896,339 votes.
All the counties have to turn in their votes by Tuesday, May 25th. And there are several steps before we have an official winner.
All the individual counties have to recount and verify all their results. That also means looking at provisional ballots and ballots from military serving overseas.
The candidate behind in votes can call it off by Wednesday, May 26th.
The secretary of the commonwealth has until 5:00 Thursday to order the recount.
The recount has to be done by noon June 8th.
And the counties have to submit their final numbers by noon on the ninth.
Then the state will tally those up and release the official winner.
There's only been one recount since Act 97 went into effect. It was last year and it cost the state more then 500 thousand dollars. Elections officials say if there is a recall it will cost just as much.
The Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor is so close it will most likely trigger an automatic recount. Local lawmaker Scott Conklin is in the lead in the Lieutenant Governor primary. But to see if he can hold it, elections officials will have to count every single vote over again.
All the precincts have reported in. But the race is still technically too close to call.
State Representative Conklin is 3,828 votes ahead, but that's less than half a percentage point. Act 97 of 2004 says if an election is that close there's an automatic recount. That means recounting 896,339 votes.
All the counties have to turn in their votes by Tuesday, May 25th. And there are several steps before we have an official winner.
All the individual counties have to recount and verify all their results. That also means looking at provisional ballots and ballots from military serving overseas.
The candidate behind in votes can call it off by Wednesday, May 26th.
The secretary of the commonwealth has until 5:00 Thursday to order the recount.
The recount has to be done by noon June 8th.
And the counties have to submit their final numbers by noon on the ninth.
Then the state will tally those up and release the official winner.
There's only been one recount since Act 97 went into effect. It was last year and it cost the state more then 500 thousand dollars. Elections officials say if there is a recall it will cost just as much.
