47 Votes Challenged: Hearing In 142nd Election Set For Tuesday

BUCKS COUNTY, PA —A hearing on vote challenges in the key 142nd Legislative District will take place before the Bucks County Board of Elections Tuesday morning.

The Board of Elections —who are the Bucks County Commissioners —met Thursday morning in Doylestown to review the remaining 1,600 of 3,100 provisional ballots.

While almost 300 of those votes were rejected, Commissioners Chairman Robert Harvie Jr. said none of them applied to the 142nd Legislative District race between Republican Joseph Hogan and Democrat Mark Moffa.

The back-and-forth race is one of two —another is in neighboring Montgomery County —at one point was in play to decide control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. But that ended last Thursday when Moffa conceded the race to Hogan.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Hogan had 15,448 votes —or 49.99 percent —while Moffa had garnered 15,394 votes —or 49.81 percent —in unofficial results, the Bucks County Board of Elections reported.

The vote challenge hearing is slated for 10 a.m. Tuesday in Doylestown.

"We have one close race in Bucks County that has statewide impact," Harvie said. "None of the provisionals are part of that today."

Board of Elections Director Tom Freitag said that there are 47 challenges to votes that were either rejected or counted by the Board of Elections during its meeting Tuesday. He said another four ballots are still being researched.

Harvie said once that hearing is held, the Bucks County Midterm Elections will be complete.

Final election results must be certified by Nov. 28.

Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo said he understands how crucial the 142nd race is.

"We talk and hear about how every vote should be counted," he said. "We have two House races that are going to decide the Majority. I realize how important that is. It's really, really important. We're still struggling with what votes should count or not."

DiGirolamo once again urged the Legislature to come up with a statute to make "our job a whole lot easier."

The 142nd Legislative District consists of Penndel, Middletown Township, Langhorne, Langhorne Manor, Lower Southampton Township and parts of Northampton Township.