If you asked everyone in the patch what were the biggest races in Fayette County in the May 17 primary election, it's a pretty fair bet most would say the contests for county commissioner.
The Herald-Standard apparently thought so, too, devoting its prime Sunday-before-the-election editorial space to its endorsements in those races, which went to Democratic incumbents Vince Vicites and Vince Zapotosky, and Republican challengers Dave Lohr and Marilyn Cellurale.
On Election Day, though, Democratic challenger Al Ambrosini and Republican incumbent Angela Zimmerlink finished as top vote-getters in their respective primaries, and Herald-Standard endorsees Vicites and Cellurale didn't make the cut with voters.
What perplexes us here in the patch is why NONE of the certified vote totals for the Democratic and Republican races for county commissioner were even mentioned in Tuesday's self-explanatory story, "Fayette County certifies election results."
http://www.heraldstandard.com/news/local_news/fayette-county-certifies-election-results/article_866768e9-c7ed-5eed-a58a-ace9d2676595.html
Winners aren't made official until the vote totals are certified by the Fayette County Election Board, so one would think it pretty important for a newspaper to inform readers of the results in the election's marquee races, even if there were no surprises or reversals.
Only editor Mark O'Keefe can answer why that information wasn't included in Tuesday's story.
Maybe someone just plain forgot. Maybe the Herald-Standard didn't want to repeat official numbers that probably were very similar to the unoffical tally on election night: Ambrosini, 9,256 and 36 percent of the vote, Zapotosky 8,561 and 33 percent, and Vicites 8,040 and 31 percent.
(For purposes of comparison, in the five-way Democratic primary in 2007, the numbers were Zapotosky, 9,963 and 31 percent, Vicites 8,815 and 27 percent, and Sean Cavanagh 7,910 and 25 percent.)
The official vote count IS important, as evidenced by this passage from Tuesday's story:
Attorney John Cupp was able to secure the Republican nomination for district attorney as a result of receiving 151 write-in votes. Cupp lost the Democratic nomination to acting district attorney Jack R. Heneks Jr. 5,749 to 9,487 votes, respectively. The vote count could not be made official until Cupp’s issue was resolved.
The election bureau initially only counted 191 of Cupp’s write-in votes, and he successfully petitioned the court for an additional 60 votes, which put him one vote over the 250 needed to secure a spot on the November ballot.
So on election night, Cupp only had 191 write-in votes and wasn't going to be on the November ballot. But when the official count was certified, things had changed and his candidacy remained alive.
We fail to see why the Herald-Standard would report the results for dozens of municipal races, including which candidates got as few as 11 write-in votes, but leave out the county commissioners.
It is not as if the newspaper decided that all county races weren't worth reporting on. Here's another passage from Tuesday's story:
Countywide, the majority of row office candidates were unopposed. The vote totals for each are: coroner Dr. Phillip E. Reilly, 14,546 Democratic votes; prothonotary Lance Winterhalter, 13,444 Democratic votes; register of wills and clerk of orphan’s court Donald D. Redman, 13,362 Democratic votes; clerk of courts Janice Snyder, 13,248 Democratic votes; and controller Sean P. Lally, 12,769 Democratic votes.
Sheriff Gary D. Brownfield defeated challenger Robert “Ted”Pritchard Sr., 12,705 votes to 2,997 votes on the Democratic ticket.
It seems odd to us that a newspaper would report the official results on a bunch of county races where the candidates were running unopposed, but would print nothing about the races for the top county positions, where there was significant competition.
But hey, what do we know?
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