Glitches delay results until 5 a.m.

Twenty-seven ballot boxes were recounted.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- A mix of human error and machine malfunctions left Lawrence County's election results in a state of flux well into Wednesday morning.
Most candidates were found to be clear winners by midnight, but a few races were too close to call throughout the night including the race for Lawrence County Common Pleas judge and county district attorney.
Election officials believed they had unofficial results by 1 a.m. until they discovered a problem with 166 votes. The problem was a mix of overcounts and undercounts, according to election officials.The final tally of unofficial results wasn't available until 5 a.m.
These problems meant an agonizing few hours for John Bongivengo, the Democratic candidate for district attorney. The last unofficial vote county had Bongivengo leading his opponent by 47 votes when the problems were discovered.
Bongivengo and his two brothers rushed to the courthouse to watch election workers recount 27 boxes where there was a discrepancy of four or more votes between the machine totals and the numbers supplied by poll workers.
Biggest discrepancy
The largest discrepancy of the night was quickly attributed to human error when it was discovered that poll workers tallied 79 more votes than were cast by people in Bessemer Borough.
That left 87 unaccounted-for votes in other precincts throughout the county.
The second-largest discrepancy was machine error when workers learned that during the first count the voting machine missed 15 ballots.
By 5 a.m., workers had counted all of the ballots in question and issued a new unofficial tally.
Marlene Gabriel, elections director, attributed the ballot discrepancies to machine operator error.
Bongivengo was relieved when he learned that he had not lost his slim lead in the race for district attorney. He ended up pulling ahead of opponent George Freed by 80 votes.
"What a gut-wrenching experience," he said after the vote totals were released.
Bongivengo, however, did say that the precincts that were recounted were in areas he expected to do well, such as New Castle, Ellwood City and Shenango Township.
Freed did not return calls seeking comment.
cioffi@vindy.com