Bucks County Government: Modest Turnout, Successful Challenge In Sheriff's Race Mark Off-Year Primary

Press release from the Bucks County Government :

May 19, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact:  James O'Malley, 215-348-6414, jtomalley@buckscounty.org

Modest turnout and few issues made for a relatively smooth primary election in Bucks County.

According to unofficial results, almost 26 percent of registered county voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s primary which, despite five row offices and a Common Pleas Court seat up for grabs, saw only a handful of contested countywide races.

Board of Elections and county staff worked into the early morning hours to finish the preliminary tally of the more than 121,000 ballots, dashing any concerns the effort might become a days-long slog as the count did in November.

“We had representation from almost every county department,” Chief Operating Officer Margie McKevitt said of the Election Night staff. “It ran like a well-oiled machine.”

Commissioner Bob Harvie echoed McKevitt’s praise for election workers, likening his experience monitoring the staff to observing “a Swiss watch.”

Problems with a vendor system used to incrementally post unofficial results throughout the night, however, caused some delays in reporting of results to the public.

“We would love to be able to say everything went flawlessly yesterday, and I think for a very, very long time it did,” Harvie said. “We did unfortunately have an issue with the vendor who works on our website where we communicate our results.”

Noting the system experienced similar issues in previous elections, Harvie said the Board of Commissioners and Board of Elections will be discussing the problem further.

“We strive to do things better every time we do it,” he said.

The county’s unofficial election results page showed nearly all precincts reported as of 3:15 a.m.

Unofficial results showed retired state trooper Mark E. Lomax decisively unseating incumbent Milt Warrell in the race to be the Democratic nominee for sheriff.

Lomax will face Republican Fred Harran, who serves as Public Safety Director for Bensalem Township, in the general election this fall. Harran ran unopposed for his party’s nomination.

Republican Pamela A. Van Blunk defeated former County Commissioner Andrew L. Warren to clinch their party’s nomination for county Controller. She will be up against Democrat Neale Dougherty, who is seeking reelection in November.

Judicial hopefuls Tiffany Michelle Thomas-Smith and Stephen A. Corr, both of whom ran cross-filed campaigns, will face off in the fall for a seat on the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas. Thomas-Smith came away from Tuesday as the Democratic nominee, while Corr took the Republican nod.

Candidates from both parties ran unopposed for District Attorney, Prothonotary and Recorder of Deeds.

In the fall, Republican incumbent Matt Weintraub, vying for a second term as District Attorney, will take on Democratic former prosecutor Antonetta Stancu.

Recorder of Deeds Robin Robinson, a Democrat, is seeking a second term against Republican challenger Dan McPhillips. Prothonotary Judi Reiss, also an incumbent Democrat, will defend her seat against Republican Coleen Christian.

County row officers are elected to four-year terms. Common Pleas judges serve for 10 years.

Compared to the 2017 primary when these row offices were last contested, voter turnout was up roughly 175 percent.

Mail-in and absentee votes accounted for 38,755 of the ballots cast Tuesday, an option less widely available four years ago. Mail-in and in-person votes were split almost evenly among Democrats, while Republicans cast nearly six times as many votes in person as they did by mail.

Republican votes in the primary outnumbered Democratic votes by about 2,100.

Overall vote totals were down from last year’s primary, when presidential candidates atop partisan ballots attracted more than 153,000 voters.

In addition to their partisan counterparts, voters not registered with a political party found cause to participate in this year’s primary thanks to a series of ballot questions.

A question seeking an amendment to the state constitution aimed at prohibiting discrimination based on a person’s race or ethnicity appeared to have wide support both in Bucks County and statewide. 

Two others, proposing constitutional amendments to enact strict limits on the governor’s ability to declare emergencies and extend emergency declarations, won narrow “no” votes in Bucks County. However, with greater support across Pennsylvania, the measures seemed poised to succeed.

Voters across the Commonwealth and in Bucks overwhelmingly approved a fourth question, which sought to allow certain municipal fire departments and emergency medical services companies to apply for loans through a state program for the purpose of upgrading facilities and equipment.

It is estimated that fewer than 2,000 ballots remain outstanding, including provisional ballots, overseas ballots and mail-in or absentee ballots flagged as potentially defective.

The Board of Elections will meet Tuesday to begin deliberations over provisional ballots cast in Tuesday’s election.

This press release was produced by the Bucks County Government. The views expressed here are the author’s own.