Voters could start receiving mail ballots for the May 16 primary as soon as the end of next week, Allegheny County officials said Wednesday.
County spokesperson Amie Downs said logic and accuracy testing of ballot counting equipment will be completed Monday and Tuesday, and officials will then work with their contractor to print ballots.
Legal wrangling over whether two Pittsburgh Democrats may run in the primary had pushed back the county’s planned timeline. At issue was whether challenges were properly lodged against the nomination petitions of candidates Tracy Royston, one of three people vying for city controller, and Steven Oberst, the sole opponent of incumbent District 1 Councilor Bobby Wilson.
Commonwealth Court issued a memorandum opinion Tuesday affirming an earlier decision by Judge John McVay Jr., of the county’s Court of Common Pleas, who ruled the challenges were invalid because they needed to have been turned in by 5 p.m.
“No one at the Board of Elections office had received the challenging petition until the next day,” McVay wrote, “which was after the deadline for challenges had passed.”
Both rulings — in the case of Mitchell Freeman and Lisa Schwartz, who challenged Royston, as well as that of Jeffrey Dzamko and Rachael James against Oberst — were then appealed to Commonwealth Court. The same lawyer, Marco Attisano, had represented both sets of challengers.
Jon, a copy editor and reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently on strike and working as a co-editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Reach him at jmoss@unionprogress.com.
