Luzerne County Court agrees with Tony Brooks in write-in ruling

A panel of Luzerne County judges granted Wilkes-Barre Councilman Tony Brooks’ emergency petition attempting to force the county to process all write-in votes in his race.

The county had planned to resolve the matter and avoid a hearing by agreeing to count the write-ins with non-shaded ovals in that particular race, as it did in a prior settlement with City Mayor George C. Brown over his write-ins. However, city council candidate Mark Shaffer filed an action intervening in Brooks’ case before that stipulation was fully executed, forcing the matter to proceed to a hearing Wednesday.

Based on legal advice, the county election board had taken the position that voters must both shade in the oval and write a name for a write-in to be accepted.

Similar to Brown’s filing, Brooks’ petition filed through Borland & Borland in Wilkes-Barre said state law prior to March 26, 2020 would have required voters to both mark the write-in selection and name of the candidate in jurisdictions with electronic voting systems that use paper ballots to register the votes, the petition said.

However, the law was amended after that date to eliminate the requirement that a voter “mark” a write-in candidate, specifying that voters can “indicate” their intent to select a write-in by inserting the name of the person, it said. Voters showed this indication when they expressly declined to select a named candidate on the ballot and instead wrote in the name of their choice, it said.

Shaffer’s filings had argued this law change still required completion of both steps — shading in the oval and writing the name.

The panel of judges — Tina Polachek Gartley, Tarah Toohil and Stefanie Salavantis — agreed with the interpretation presented by Brooks.

Brooks ran unopposed on the Republican ballot in District B and received the party’s nomination with 182 votes, according to the unofficial results.

On the Democratic side, Shaffer ran unopposed on the ballot and received 214 votes. But Brooks is set to secure the nomination instead of Shaffer because he received 280 Democratic write-in votes, according to tallying completed today.

This figure does not include any write-in votes from voters who did not shade in the ovals. In compliance with the court order, the county election board must now review those votes.

Brown tally

The election board completed its agreed-upon review of Republican mayoral write-in votes in Wilkes-Barre Thursday, and Brown did not secure enough to obtain that party’s nomination.

Republican Harry L. Cropp III, who appeared on the Republican ballot without competition, had 453 votes.

George C. Brown received 222 write-in votes, which does not include those cast under other spelling variations. Some other tallies, according to a report posted on the election page at luzernecounty.org: George Brown, 97; Mayor Brown, 2; G Brown, 3; Brown, 16; Geo Brown, 2; Brown G, 2; Mayor George C. Brown, 1; Mayor George Brown, 1; and G C Brown, 1.

The election bureau said there were nine write-in votes without shaded ovals in the race.

Brown secured the Democratic nomination in the city mayor’s race, which means he will face Cropp in the November general election.

Local attorney Neil O’Donnell, who had represented Brown in the matter, said his firm was “honored to assist Mayor Brown on that important post-election filing.”

“Although the mayor came up just short on the Republican side, it was a worthy effort and shows his commitment to counting all votes,” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell also thanked the county election board for agreeing to count all write-in votes in the race, which he said was the “right thing.” He is hopeful the county will be guided by the both legal filings and the court’s opinion and agree to count write-in votes in all future races, regardless of whether the oval is shaded.

Brooks said he is glad the court agreed with his petition to count all votes in the race.

“It’s worth the effort to make sure every vote is counted,” Brooks said.