Representatives of the Carbon County Republican Committee are petitioning the court to stop the hand count currently happening with the county’s election results.

Chairman of the committee Lee Becker, along with Wallace Putkowski and Katie Kokinda, all of Lehighton, filed the petition against the Carbon County Election Board Tuesday morning.

The trio is asking the court for an emergency application for special relief because it was “determined that immediate and irreparable injury will be sustained before the notice can be given or a hearing held.”

They cite three reasons for the emergency application: Performing the manual recount of the paper ballots from the Carbon County 2019 general election, permitting Dominion Voting Systems to perform an electronic recount of the paper ballots using a high-speed scanner and the election board is directed to perform a mandated canvass of the ballots before any hand count is authorized by the board.

After the polls closed Tuesday night, the election reports contained obvious errors in municipal and school board races. In some races, votes were only listed for the first candidate on the ballot. In other cases, candidates had a small number of votes.

The problem began when two candidates were left off in Lower Towamensing and Mahoning where substitute candidates for people who died didn’t make it onto the ballot.

The change led to a database problem, resulting in problems reporting the results after Lower Towamensing.

The petition states that the county election board failed to conduct a statutorily mandated canvass, citing one member said during the board’s meeting on Friday that there was one error found in the ballot figures and recommended the hand count.

The board then passed the motion for the hand count and high speed scanning unanimously.

The petitioners contend that the action was not permitted under the election statute.

Carbon County is currently on day two of the hand count of all ballots filed during the election. It has 20 days to certify the votes.

Becker, Putkowski and Kokinda are represented by attorney Keith R. Pavlack.