Board should hold a revote in the city

Editorial     Reading Eagle   20 July 2005

The Issue: The Berks County Elections Board decides not to hold a special election in four city precincts where 111 votes were lost during the primary election.

Our Opinion: Although those votes probably won?t change the outcome of three races that were decided by fewer than 111 votes, the voters have the right to have their votes counted.

The decision by the Berks County Elections Board not to hold a revote in four city precincts may be based in law, but it seems unfair.

In announcing the decision to certify the election in the city, where a programming error caused 111 votes to be lost, board members cited a Delaware County Court case that said the elections board must determine whether the error caused the will of the voters to be overturned.

Board members said they believe the error did not impact the will of the voters, even though three races were decided by fewer than 111 votes.

That prompted one of those candidates ? Larry Miccicke Jr., who was seeking the Democratic nomination for City Council in District 5 against incumbent Donna Reed ? to contemplate suing the elections board.

?There were 111 votes that disappeared in precincts that should have been really strong for me,? Miccicke said. ?I think the no revote is an injustice to a lot of people who gave money for me.?

So do we. The problem is that there is no way of knowing who cast those 111 votes, so every person who voted in those four precincts would have to be given the opportunity to vote again. And that could have an impact on candidates who won their races by more than 111 votes, especially if the entire slate of candidates were included in the revote.

That is what county Republican Chairman Larry Medaglia has been pushing for, with the hope that Anne L. Carroll, a candidate for judge, could win a nomination on the Democratic ballot.

But there would be no need to include the entire slate of candidates, just those in the three races that were decided by less than 111 votes.

Those races would be for the Democratic nominations for City Council in District 5, Berks County coroner and the Reading School Board.

There would be a complication in the school board race, which was a six-way race with the top four receiving nominations. Any revote should impact only Harry P. Storch Jr., who finished fourth, and Catherine Biondo, who finished fifth, 48 votes behind Storch.

But all six names would have to appear on the ballot as they did during the May 17 primary, which could impact the top three finishers, who won their nominations by more than 111 votes.

There would have to be some means to protect those three candidates ? Yvonne L. Stroman, Pierre V. Cooper and William Cinfici, just as the candidates in the other races that were decided by more than 111 votes would be protected by having them participate in a revote.

The odds of altering the results of any of the three races are remote at best. But, as longtime courthouse observers have stated many times, the only thing stranger that jury verdicts are election results. As long as the numbers indicate there was even a remote chance of altering the outcome, those voters should be given an opportunity to exercise their franchise.

The mistake here took place when a contractor hired by the county improperly programmed a handful of the voting machines. The only way to guarantee that each person who voted will have his or her vote count is to allow everyone in those four city precincts who voted in the primary to vote again, but only in the races that were decided by fewer than 111 votes.

Nothing less than the integrity of the election process is at stake.