MERCER COUNTY At officials' request, elections director resigns

A commissioner said he wanted to fire the elections official in September.
MERCER, Pa. -- The resignation of embattled Director of Elections James Bennington was on the agenda to be accepted when Mercer County commissioners met this morning.
Bennington resigned effective Dec. 31 in response to a request by commissioners, it was announced Wednesday.
He has been under fire since the Nov. 2 general election when all 12 precincts in the 4th Congressional District in the county experienced computer malfunctions because of a coding error that Bennington admitted was his fault.
Because of the computer breakdown, hundreds of votes were lost, not counting those that would have been cast by voters who left polling places and did not return.
Another question
In addition, commissioners have questioned a large undervote throughout county. For example, there were about 4,000 fewer votes cast in the presidential race compared with the number of people who voted Nov. 2, according to election statistics.
On Wednesday, during an agenda meeting, Commissioner Brian Beader said he had asked for Bennington's firing in September because he said Bennington was not following his directives.
After the election, county Democratic Chairman Robert Lark called for Bennington's firing.
An eight-member committee that includes Lark has been appointed by commissioners to investigate what went wrong and how to prevent such problems.
Commissioners will now have to name Bennington's successor but will first have to decide whether to keep the position part time or expand it to full time. Commissioner Olivia Lazor said Wednesday night she hopes to meet with the other two commissioners the first of next week and make a decision.
"We don't have a whole lot of time," she said, noting the new director will have to run the election in the spring.
Bennington had retired several years ago from his job as director of the county computer department. He came out of retirement to take the election post part time.