Election Recounts In Delco Affirm Original Results, Officials Say

DELAWARE COUNTY, PA — Recounts of four elections in Delaware County have been completed after being challenged.

The Delaware County Elections Department said the four races were challenged in accordance with a state statute that permits voters who paid $50 for each of the precincts involved in a race to seek a recount.

Results were challenged in four supervisors races in three municipalities: Bethel, Edgmont, and Glenolden townships.

The recounts confirmed that Chuck Dennie won a 6-year term as Bethel Township Supervisor by 29 votes; Stephanie DerOhannessian won a 2-year term as Bethel Township Supervisor by 29 votes; that Annie Thorne won a 6-year term as Edgmont Township Supervisor by 28 votes; and that Kimberly Duffy, Bill Helms, Julie Pfaff and Andy Sharpe won the “vote-for-four” 4-year terms to Glenolden Borough Council, with Sharpe 16 votes ahead of the candidate who received the next-highest total in that race.

The recounts were conducted by the Election Department with oversight by the candidates and the political parties involved between Nov. 27 and Dec. 1, and all four recounts verified the original results.

"Since the original counts, a federal court issued an order that undated or improperly dated
mail/absentee envelopes be opened and that those ballots be added," Delaware County Elections Director James P. Allen said. "There were only a handful in each contest. While these ballots slightly affected the margins, they did not change who won or who lost."

Allen said election day precinct poll workers, as well as county election staff, "deserve credit for their work on the original counts, all of which held up in the recounts."

"We now have had multiple recounts in the last three years that have all confirmed the original results of close contests in Delaware County with a system that has a clear paper trail for every single ballot cast," he said.

Although not required, the Elections Department staff performed both ballot-scanner recounts and hand recounts to confirm the original results.