After vote count, Coleman maintains slight lead over Browne, and Miller’s lead over Zrinski shrinks
Lehigh and Bucks counties have yet to post final unofficial counts
After all the mail-in and provisional ballots were counted Tuesday, there was no change in the leader in two close state Senate primary races in the Lehigh Valley.
In the 16th District Republican contest, Parkland School Board member Jarrett Coleman maintained a razor-thin lead of 19 votes over long-time incumbent Pat Browne in what would be a shocking upset if the result is unchanged when votes are certified.
And in the new 14th District, Allentown School Board member Nick Miller had a 40-vote lead over Northampton County Commissioner Tara Zrinski in the Democratic primary.
None of the candidates could be reached for comment.
The votes on this post were collected from the county election websites, but results from Lehigh and Bucks were marked as incomplete, meaning the unofficial final results have not been posted.
On Tuesday, Lehigh counted one military, 14 provisional and 50 undated ballots, according to Tim Benyo, chief clerk of the Lehigh County Election Office.
Northampton County votes were marked as complete except for write-in votes.
The state’s results website was not updated as well as of 8 p.m. Armchair Lehigh Valley will be monitoring sites for updates throughout the evening.
Coleman led Browne 17,041-17,022. His margin over Browne increased by two since the votes were tallied last week. The 16th District, which was redrawn after the 2020 Census, includes a small part of Allentown and parts of Lehigh and Bucks counties.
Miller led Zrinski 8,833-8,793. His lead had shrunk from about 100 votes last week. A third candidate, Yamelisa Taveras of Allentown and CEO of Counseling Solutions of the Lehigh Valley, had 3,229 votes. The 14th District covers parts of Lehigh and Northampton counties.
The counting of mail-in and provisional ballots Tuesday came after a hectic week since the May 17 primary.
On Friday afternoon, a federal appeals court ordered that 257 mail-in ballots without required dates must be counted in a still-undetermined 2021 Lehigh County judicial race.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of five residents whose votes were not counted because they failed to date the outer envelope as required by state law.
The three-judge panel court agreed with the ACLU which said the ballots should be counted because they were received by the county Election Board before the deadline; to throw out the ballots for such an “immaterial” reason would disenfranchise the voters, a violation of the Civil Rights Act.
That decision prompted the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections, on Tuesday morning to advise counties to count all undated ballots as long as they were received on time and met other requirements. The state also advised that the undated ballots be segregated from the others due to litigation.
Meanwhile, David McCormick, who is going head-to-head with Dr. Mehmet Oz in the U.S. Senate GOP primary, filed a lawsuit Monday asking the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to promptly order Pennsylvania counties to count mail-in ballots that lack handwritten dates, according to The Associated Press. The state’s advisory Tuesday likely made McCormick’s lawsuit unnecessary.
Nonetheless, the Republican National Committe and the Pennsylvania Republican Party went to court to oppose McCormick’s request, saying the law requires dates on the outer envelopes, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
Counties were supposed to file the unofficial results to the state by 5 p.m. Tuesday. Counties can then certify the vote totals after five days. That could prompt recount requests by candidates in close contests, such as the Republican state Senate primary in the 16th District.