Lycoming County election officials recertify votes for US senator with minor changes from initial count

It's officially official, the election results for the 2024 Presidential Election and the statewide recount for US senator have been certified by the Lycoming County Board of Elections.

The board met this week to act on the certification. Commissioners Marc Sortman and Mark Mussina, acting as the Election Board, approved the certification of the figures reported by Director of Elections Forrest Lehman. Commissioner Scott Metzger was absent for the vote, but the presence of two of the three officials constitutes a quorum.

The results from the general election were certified for a second time because there had been no challenges filed since the first certification last week, according to Lehman.

The statewide recount was for the office of US Senator, the contest between Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and his challenger Dave McCormick.

The county's Voter Services department had completed the recount last Wednesday.

"It took us until 6 o'clock that day. We already had the work done and I think it was that evening that Sen. Casey conceded the contest, but as far as we knew, we had to keep doing the recount," Lehman said.

"We went ahead and adjudicated our over and under votes Friday morning and we were finishing that process when the Department of State then announced they were halting the recount," he said.

"They could say that, but we had already finished it. So, knowing that these results, I believe, are marginally more accurate than the official results, that's what we're certifying and we're going to go ahead and send that information to the state," Lehman said.

The official results of the recount showed that the county had 73,967 registered voters and the turnout was 81.12%. Of that, Casey received 29.14% of the vote, or 17,354. McCormick's total was 40,669 or 68.29%. Third party candidates and write-ins received the remainder of the votes.

Other statistics from the recount showed that Casey's vote numbers stayed the same; McCormick's decreased by three; the two third party candidates' votes stayed the same; and the write-in votes increased by one.

The changes were "very small," Lehman said, and the number of the ballots in the county increased by one to 60,001 as the result of the board's recent decision to count a provisional ballot.

Although the 2025 primary election for municipal races is not until next May, Lehman indicated that his department is already receiving calls from people for information about nomination petitions.

The next meeting of the Election Board will be some time in January, he said, when decisions about polling place changes should be on the agenda.