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The results of the hand recount of the 2020 General Election are in and they are what was expected -- small fluctuations in the totals, but not by the thousands that the petitioners of the count were claiming would be found.
"I think the results speak for themselves," said Forrest Lehman, director of Voter Services.
People attacked the voting system. They claimed the voting system was off by thousands of votes. We did a hand count that proved that was patently not the case," he said.
"The county already had four years of evidence in the form of pre-election testing and post-election audits to prove, to support, the argument that our voting system is accurate. In addition to that, we had evidence from two statewide recounts to support the argument that the voting system was accurate. Now, we have the results of a hand count of an entire presidential election to prove that the voting system is accurate," he said.
The group of concerned citizens last year had approached the Board of Elections, which is composed of the Lycoming County Commissioners, with petitions signed by around 5,000 county residents. The group contended that votes had been miscounted, voters disenfranchised and that they believed there had been ballot harvesting in nursing homes.
Following presentations by Lehman countering their accusations, the group proceeded to first call for a return to paper ballots. The board of elections had voted to place a referendum on the ballot asking voters if they wanted to do away with the use of voting machines. The board was told that the state legislators would have to give the okay for such an action, so they did not pursue it for fear of being sued by the state.
Then came the call for a hand recount to restore voter confidence in the integrity of the election, they said.
The board of elections finally voted 2-1 to have the recount, with Democrat Rick Mirabito voting against the recount.
The petitioners' contention was that with the larger number of Republican voters in the county, President Donald Trump should have won by more votes than he did. If the hand recount is the group's standard, then Trump actually won by seven fewer votes than had originally been reported following the election -- 41,462 to 41,455. Biden, according to the hand count lost in the county by 15 more votes --16,971 to 16,956. Jo Jorgenson, the Libertarian candidate gained four votes -- 821 to 825.
Lehman had cautioned before the hand count that there could be instances of human error, such as had been encountered in the hand recount in Butler County, which could account for discrepancies.
"So, at every turn when the voting system is tested, when the voting system is audited, the evidence weighs in our favor and supports what we've been saying all along -- there has been no evidence to support the other side," Lehman said.
But, the other side is not giving up according to reports following the completion of the recount.
"We're going to look at the findings and digest everything," Jeffrey Stroehmann, one of those who had called for the hand recount, said this week." This, certainly from our aspect is not the end of it."
Commissioner Scott Metzger speaking at the commissioners meeting this week expressed a counterview.
"This recount will show we do it right in Lycoming County and we can put this to bed once and for all," he said.
The board of elections will meet at 10 a.m. Jan. 24 at the commissioners' Board Room, 1st floor Executive Plaza, 330 Pine St., to discuss the results.
"We'll have more to share at the Board of Elections meeting. We wanted to get top-line numbers out to the public as soon as possible in order to reaffirm what our evidence has always supported that the voting system is accurate. That was important to do," Lehman said. "But we're going to take the time between now and Jan. 24 to review that count in more detail and then be able to present additional information to the public."
"I understand there already have been requests for all the records pertaining to the recount. They're public records. Anyone who wants them will be able to request and receive them. If they want to check our math, they're welcome to that. I don't expect that they're going to find anything different from what we found," he said.