No special election planned in Wyoming Area School Board race

After reviewing Nov. 7 general election vote tallies, Wyoming Area School Board candidate Erica Gazda said Monday she won’t be seeking a special election.

Independents Gazda and Philip Campenni both ran for a two-year board seat.

Luzerne County’s election bureau did not notify Wyoming County’s election office that Nick DeAngelo should be removed from the ballot because he withdrew and that Campenni and Gazda must be added because they filed petitions after the primary to appear on the general election ballot.

Wyoming County has one municipality — Exeter Township — in the Wyoming Area School District, and DeAngelo was the lone candidate on the ballot.

Based on unofficial results, 210 of 479 registered voters in that township cast ballots Nov. 7. Of those, 134 selected DeAngelo, seven cast write-in votes and 69 did not select anyone in that race, the county’s website says.

In Luzerne County, unofficial results put Campenni ahead by 276 votes. He received 2,017 votes, compared to 1,741 for Gazda.

To obtain a special election in the Wyoming County municipality, Gazda would have to request one with Wyoming County’s election board, county Administrative Services Division Head Jennifer Pecora said based on her discussions with the county law office.

If the board denied a request, the candidate would then have two days to appeal the decision to the courts, Pecora said.

A special election would have to be funded by Luzerne County because it made the error, Luzerne County officials have said.

Pecora said the law office indicated the court would likely weigh the likelihood of the outcome changing with a special election.

Gazda said Monday she would still come up short if all 210 voters who cast ballots in the Wyoming County township had another opportunity to vote and picked her.

“Even if I got all of those, I still lost,” she said.

While saddened by the outcome, Gazda said she is proud of her vote tally as a first-time candidate.

“I gave it my best. I learned a lot,” Gazda said.

Gazda said the ballot omission created uncertainty and left her in limbo.

“Now I can go on social media and tell my neighbors the result,” Gazda said. “I want to thank everyone for their support.”

She plans to run again in two years, saying she has picked up ideas on campaigning in this initial experience.

Going forward, Luzerne County’s election bureau will personally meet with other counties to ensure all candidates are correct in “split districts” that include municipalities outside Luzerne County, officials have said.

As previously reported, updated unofficial Nov. 7 general election results are posted at luzernecounty.org.

These additional votes came from mail and provisional ballots the county’s five-citizen Election Board accepted during adjudication and include tallies for write-in races.

A write-in tie-breaker process known as the “casting of lots” will be held at noon Wednesday in the adjudication room (301) on the third floor of the county’s Penn Place Building on the corner of Market Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Wilkes-Barre.

The election board’s certification of the final results is scheduled at 1 p.m. Nov. 27 at the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre.