The primary election re-vote is complete for candidates to the Hazleton Area school board.
But the final tally, which will determine the candidates who will advance to the November ballot, won't be official for a few more days.
Officials of both the Carbon and Schuylkill county election bureaus will meet at 9 a.m. today to canvass and compute the votes cast during Tuesday's special primary.
Those results will be added to the Luzerne County numbers that were certified in the original primary May 21 to determine the top four vote-getters on each ticket, Democrat and Republican. The names of the top four candidates on each ticket will advance to the General Election in November.
It's virtually impossible to determine how Tuesday's vote re-distributed the 553 ballots that went to Steve Hahn in the flawed May 21 primary, or even whether voters cast their ballots for the same candidates Tuesday as they did in the original primary. But an unofficial tally compiled by the Hazleton Standard-Speaker from results at each of the seven polling places Tuesday evening indicates Carmella Yenkevich picked up a fair share of the Democrat vote that was lost, presumably to Hahn, in the flawed primary.
A Luzerne County judge threw out the results of the May primary election in Schuylkill and Carbon counties and ordered a new election after the Luzerne County Election Bureau failed to notify Schuylkill and Carbon county officials that Steve Hahn withdrew his candidacy. As a result, Hahn's name was removed from the Luzerne County ballot but remained on the ballots in Schuylkill and Carbon counties.
In the flawed primary, incumbent school board member Clarence John beat incumbent Yenkevich by 32 votes on the Republican ballot, and newcomer Jared O'Donnell edged Yenkevich by eight votes on the Democratic ballot.
According to Standard-Speaker tabulations, Yenkevich appears to have picked up enough Democrat votes to take the fourth-place nomination, but not enough votes for the GOP nod.
Preliminary numbers indicate O'Donnell clinched the Republican nomination but not the Democrat.
Unofficial results combining Luzerne County's previously certified numbers with tallies from Tuesday's re-vote in Schuylkill and Carbon, which do not yet have absentee ballots and write-in votes calculated into the total, indicate the top four vote-getters on the Democrat ballot are James Chapman, Robert Mehalick, Clarence John and Yenkevich. The unofficial top four on the GOP vote are Mehalick, O'Donnell, Chapman and John.
"It's unofficial. I guess we have to wait for the certified numbers to make it official," Yenkevich said late Tuesday.
She said the voter turnout was not as large as she hoped but she is pleased that voters had the opportunity to re-vote on a correct ballot.
"I was hoping for a bigger turnout but the reason this all took place is because the people deserve to vote on a correct ballot," she said.
O'Donnell said he is pleased he appears to have retained the Republican nomination but felt the re-vote was the wrong way to correct May's ballot mistake.
"I didn't really agree with the re-election because I knew what would happen. Turnout was poor at best," O'Donnell said.
He said the special election disenfranchised hundreds of voters who turned out May 21 when they were supposed to vote.
Undaunted, O'Donnell said he will "campaign hard" through the summer and early fall to ensure his best shot at a seat on the Hazleton Area school board.
"It's unfortunate what happened on May 21. It's unfortunate they tried to correct the mistake with another election in the summer when people are on vacation. But I will campaign hard from now until November and I am confident I will prevail," he said.