York County wades into lengthy election hand count: 'Seeing ballots in my sleep'

The York County administrative center was quiet as a library Thursday as election officials began a hand count of ballots cast in the election Tuesday, chosen from three random precincts.

Thursday's count came after a county meeting with Audit the Vote PA, a group that purports to fight for election integrity and has spread misinformation about the 2020 election. The same group has organized events featuring Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who trailed Democrat Josh Shapiro by a large margin based on unofficial results.

"We're being transparent today with our voters," President Commissioner Julie Wheeler said Thursday, "and ensuring that the will of the voters and how they wanted their vote cast is the way they wanted it."

County election staff chose three precincts — a city, a borough and a township — for the additional scrutiny out of a tin container: one precinct each from Jacobus, West Manchester Township and York City.

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The recount process began with the sorting of ballots by hand into votes cast by candidate for the governor’s race. After those votes were tabulated by hand, the ballots were then fed through a scanner to confirm. The process then repeated for the Senate race, won by Democrat John Fetterman over Republican Mehmet Oz.

County staff didn't count races further down the ballot, citing time constraints.

The event itself demonstrated the shortcomings of hand counts, with the process of counting 1,842 ballots — 741 from Jacobus, 384 from York and 717 from West Manchester — taking nearly four hours in total.

For comparison, York County unofficial results show that 184,594 ballots were cast.

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If all of those ballots were counted by hand, the process would take nearly 17 days — assuming round-the-clock counting — based on the pace of the count on Thursday. And that's just for the marquee gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.

"I think we can certainly see why recounting votes by hand would take a very long amount of time," Wheeler said.

The hand counts also repeatedly returned tallies that were off by a single vote — which then forced a recount that was checked using a Dominion Voting Systems scanner.

An initial count of the York City precinct showed Fetterman winning 327 votes, for example. The machine showed 326, a figure that was subsequently repeated in a second hand count. For West Manchester, the initial hand count showed Oz had 494 votes — but the machine and a second count showed 493.

“Human error is the factor,” Elections Director Julie Haertsch said.

Chief Clerk Greg Monskie, one of three county employees involved in the hand count, said the final hand count results for all three precincts matched what was counted on election night.

Ultimately, Haertsch said, the hand count was a way to show transparency and allow people to see what election workers do.

"Things are on track," Haertsch said of the county's certification of the votes.

The event was sparsely attended. Those who did attend were warned that any “disruption, interference or obstruction” would lead to their removal by a sheriff's deputy.

Beyond members of the media, attendees mainly included those who've challenged the use of electronic voting machines in the past. That included Angie Kline, of Dover Township, and Jessica Wood, of Jacobus. Wood attempted to get a referendum on the 2022 general election ballot regarding the use of electronic voting machines in Jacobus.

"A lot of people have so many questions, I want to verify them for our friends and relatives and people in our district," Kline said Thursday. "It's good to see that the process can be verified."

Kline said she trusted the local election officials and that she was happy with the machine count.

The atmosphere was quiet but collegial.

“I’m going to be seeing ballots in my sleep,” Bryan Sheaffer, the county's deputy director of elections, joked at one point.

— Reach Matt Enright via email at menright@yorkdispatch.com or via Twitter at @Matthew_Enright.