Pennsylvania 2023 Election Results: Sara Innamorato, Stephen Zappala win key Allegheny County races

Post-Gazette writer Brandon McGinley joined the KDKA-TV Morning News to break down the Allegheny County Executive's race and the Allegheny County District Attorney's race. 

District Attorney Jason Walsh has won his first full term in Washington County.

Read more here.

Democrat Nate Bible beat out two-term incumbent Republican David Lozier.

Read more here. 

Voters in the Pine-Richland School District came out in support of parents who challenged books available in the school libraries.

Read more here.

Labor Council President Darrin Kelly released the following statement:

We congratulate our endorsed candidate and our next County Executive Sara Innamorato. We are excited by this victory and grateful for all the many union members who spent their time working hard to elect Sara so that she can get to work on behalf of working families in Allegheny County. We recognize that not every single union backed Sara in this race, but we are confident that we will all work well together and we will ensure that every single union and all of our members will thrive during Sara's administration.

Congratulations to Sara and her team on a hard fought victory. We can't wait to get to work.

Democrat Jill Beck has won a seat on the Pennsylvania Superior Court, the Associated Press projects. 

Click here for more. 

KDKA-TV political editor Jon Delano breaks down the results and projections from Election Day.

Democrat Dan McCaffery has defeated Republican Carolyn Carluccio in the race for the open seat on Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, expanding his party's majority on the seven-member court, the Associated Press projects. 

Democrats now hold a 5-2 majority on the seven-member court. 

Click here to read more.

Republican Stephen Zappala has defeated Democrat Matt Dugan in the race for Allegheny County district attorney, KDKA-TV projects.   

Click here for more.

Democrat Sara Innamorato was elected Allegheny County executive, the AP is projecting. 

Innamorato and Republican Joe Rockey were running to replace current Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who is term-limited after 12 years in office. 

Read more here.

Allegheny County is continuing to upload in-person results about every 15 minutes, a spokesperson for the county said. 

It was reported earlier that ballots were received from the Postal Service after 8 p.m. The county gave an update, saying there were 151 of those ballots, and all of them have been set aside to be handled during the Return Board process. 

The last flat of ballots that were returned by voters to the County Office Building before 8 p.m. included 380 ballots. Workers are reviewing and processing them before they can be scanned and added to the totals. 

Allegheny County election workers are reviewing and processing ballots that came in the afternoon mail. They'll be scanned this evening, a county spokesperson said. The number was originally reported as 768 but corrected to 968.

Around 7 p.m., the Elections Division sent over 361 ballots that had been returned to the County Office Building's ballot return. Ballots returned between 7-8 p.m. will be brought over by the division manager later. 

A small tray of mail also arrived shortly after 8 p.m. Those ballots -- the county couldn't say how many at the time -- have been set aside for the return board process. 

Allegheny County has started to post the results on its website.

If you missed KDKA-TV's Election Day show, you can watch it below. 

The polls are officially closed in Pennsylvania. 

A voting machine company's clerical error caused votes in an eastern Pennsylvania county to appear to be flipped on a ballot question that asked whether a pair of incumbent state appeals judges should be retained, officials said Tuesday.

Voters were asked to decide whether Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges Jack Panella and Victor Stabile should be retained for additional 10-year terms. The "yes" or "no" votes for each judge were switched on a summary displayed to voters before they cast their ballot, said Charles Dertinger, the Northampton County director of administration. If a voter marked "yes" to retain Panella and "no" on Stabile, for example, it was reflected as "no" on Panella and "yes" on Stabile.

Voters noticed the error on the printed voting records produced by the touchscreen machines, and brought it to the attention of poll workers shortly after the start of voting Tuesday morning.

Despite the glitch on the printed summary, voters' actual choices were properly recorded by the machines' backend system, and their votes will be tabulated accurately, Dertinger said Thursday afternoon at a news conference in Easton.

"What you read and what the computer reads are two different things. The computer does not read the text that is printed out," he said.

The issue affected all the county's voting machines in use Tuesday, estimated at more than 300. The Pennsylvania Department of State said the problem was isolated to the two retention votes in Northampton County and that no other races statewide were affected.

The county obtained a court order Tuesday after the problem was discovered that allowed the machines to continue to be used.

Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, who leads the county 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Philadelphia, called it a "relatively minor glitch" and said in a phone interview that "everybody's vote's going to count" as the voters intended. Poll workers were instructed to inform voters of the glitch before they entered the voting booth.

Still, he said later Thursday, the problem angered him, given many voters' mistrust.

"It's our job to help give people confidence, help give them peace of mind in their voting processes," McClure, a Democrat, said at the news conference. "We need to need to reassure the public that their voting is safe and secure."

McClure blamed a coding error by voting machine company Election Systems & Software, which he said the county's elections staff failed to pick up during testing.

Omaha, Nebraska-based ES&S acknowledged fault. A company spokesperson, Katina Granger, said the problem was caused by human error, was limited to Northampton County and only affected the judicial retention question.

"We deeply regret what has occurred today," said Linda Bennett, the company's senior vice president of customer operations.

It's not the first time Northampton County has had problems with the company's ExpressVoteXL touchscreen system. In 2019, an incorrectly formatted ballot in a judicial race forced election workers to count the vote on paper ballots.

Election-security advocates later filed suit challenging Pennsylvania's certification of the ExpressVoteXL system. The suit was settled in August with an agreement that election officials would record and publicly report problems with voting machines.

Rich Garella of Protect Our Vote Philly, one of the plaintiffs in that suit, questioned Tuesday whether the ExpressVoteXL machines could be trusted.

"Every malfunctioning machine should be immediately pulled from service and every voter should receive an emergency paper ballot," he said.

The machines are also used in Philadelphia and in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, although there were no reports of problems there Tuesday.

The glitch in Northampton County had little practical effect, as retention of statewide judicial incumbents is nearly automatic in Pennsylvania. Only one judge on any of the state's three appellate courts has ever been recalled by voters. That was in 2005, when Justice Russell Nigro lost retention in the fallout over legislation that awarded pay raises to state lawmakers and judges.

In a retention election, citizens vote "yes" or `"no" to keeping a judge for another 10-year-term.

For the first time in more than two decades, Allegheny County could have a new top prosecutor. 

Longtime incumbent and lifelong Democrat Stephen Zappala is running on the Republican ticket after losing the Democratic primary to Matt Dugan.

Tuesday is a rematch between the two candidates. Zappala hopes to convince Democratic and Republican voters that he should be retained as DA.

Dugan is running as a progressive, while Zappala is running as a law-and-order candidate. 

Zappala hopes to convince roughly 30 percent of Democratic voters to cross party lines. 

WATCH: KDKA-TV's Andy Sheehan and Ross Guidotti's report

Democrat Sara Innamorato and Republican Joe Rockey are facing off for Allegheny County executive, a job currently held by Rich Fitzgerald, who is term limited.   

Joe Rockey and his supporters will show up at the Wyndham in Downtown Pittsburgh. Rockey says it's going to be a fight but he's a fighter and a problem solver. 

KDKA-TV was there when he made the rounds at various polling sites, putting in his vote. Throughout his campaign, Rockey, a former businessman and moderate Republican, has focused on what he feels are the three major issues facing Allegheny County: public safety, jobs and property taxes.

One political insider said the X factor is that no progressive candidate has faced someone with all the money and infrastructure Rockey has behind him. It's been more than two decades since a Republican won the county executive office and his campaign says they need 25% of Democrats to vote for him. 

"We feel good about the campaign that we ran. We are very proud of the fact that this race is as competitive as it is. We feel confident that we have a chance to win tonight. Not over confident, but confident that we have a chance to win and prepared to run the county when we do," Rockey said. 

WATCH: KDKA-TV's Jennifer Borrasso and Meghan Schiller report

Sara Innamorato is a hometown girl from the North Hills hoping to secure a win tonight and prove she can bridge the gap between the generations.

She's living in Lawrenceville now and that's where she's spent the past several years at her state representative office since winning the underdog race and going to work at the state level.

She says this race is personal -- the opioid epidemic and housing instability both impacted her life.

Her key initiatives include fighting for people on the margins, creating a safer community by cutting down on blight and creating stable high-quality housing for all.  

"I know there are so many people across the county who are living paycheck to paycheck, that they've lost someone they love, they've suffered from eviction or housing insecurity and that's what motivates me each and every day is to care for the people who are most vulnerable," Innamorato said. 

Innamorato's campaign watch party is at Mr. Smalls Theatre. Doors open at 7:45. 

Another 697 ballots returned to the Allegheny County Office Building through 3 p.m. are being processed and scanned at the warehouse, an Allegheny County spokesperson said. 

Polls are still open for another two and a half hours, and anyone who is in line to vote at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote. 

The county will give another update after polls close. 

A coding error in an eastern Pennsylvania county caused votes to be flipped on a ballot question that asked whether a pair of incumbent state appeals judges should be retained, officials said Tuesday.

Voters were asked to decide whether Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges Jack Panella and Victor Stabile should be retained for additional 10-year terms. The "yes" or "no" votes for each judge were being switched because of the error, said Lamont McClure, the Northampton County executive. If a voter marked "yes" to retain Panella and "no" on Stabile, for example, it was reflected as "no" on Panella and "yes" on Stabile.

McClure said voters first noticed the error on the printed voting records produced by the touchscreen machines.

The issue affected all the county's voting machines in use Tuesday, which McClure estimated at more than 300. The Pennsylvania Department of State said the problem was isolated to the two retention votes in Northampton County and that no other races statewide were affected.

The county obtained a court order Tuesday after the problem was discovered that allowed the machines to continue to be used. When the votes are tabulated, they will be corrected so that "Panella's votes will be returned to Panella, and Stabile's will be returned to Stabile," said McClure, who leads the county 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Philadelphia.

McClure called it a "relatively minor glitch" and said in a phone interview that "everybody's vote's going to count" as the voters intended. Poll workers were instructed to inform voters of the glitch before they entered the voting booth.

McClure blamed a coding error by voting machine company Election Systems & Software, which he said the county's elections staff failed to pick up during testing.

ES&S acknowledged fault. A company spokesperson, Katina Granger, said the problem was caused by human error, was limited to Northampton County and only affected the judicial retention question.

Allegheny County had no major issues to report at polling places in an update at 3:30 p.m. 

As of 3 p.m., a county spokesperson said workers have opened and scanned all ballots received at the warehouse Tuesday morning.

Workers are currently processing 3,675 ballots that came from the mail Tuesday and the curbside ballot return Monday. 

Ballot return at the County Office Building will be open until 8 p.m. Any ballots turned in through this morning until 3 p.m. are being brought to the warehouse to be processed, and any ballots turned in between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. will be brought to the warehouse once the polls close. 

The division also expects to make one more run to the post office around 7 p.m. for any other ballots that were mailed in.

At the warehouse, the first shift ended at 2 p.m. when all extraction was complete. There are about 22 staff still at the warehouse for any remaining processing and scanning as well as three authorized representatives -- one Democrat and two Republicans. 

Voters in Greene County can cure their ballots on Tuesday if they used a mail-in or absentee ballot that had a printing error on it. 

The Greene County commissioners said in a Facebook post that an error on ballots shows that voters can choose up to three candidates for commissioner. They can actually only vote for two. 

Those who voted for three candidates and sent in their ballots can correct the error to make sure their votes are counted. 

Voters had the choice to go to the election bureau office and tell workers they needed a new ballot. Or they could appear at their normal polling place on Tuesday and cast a provisional ballot correcting the incorrect ballot.

Commissioner Blair Zimmerman, who is seeking re-election, said, "I sympathize with the people that the votes won't count because that's what elections are about, people getting the opportunity to have their choice and voice in government, and so yeah, I'm disappointed."  

Zimmerman also believes this will impact the outcome of the race, "I've been around the county all morning. Just take a little break. And the turnout was really poor. And I think a lot of people were frustrated by what happened."  

"Remember if you voted for more than two (2) candidates for Commissioner your vote will not be counted unless you take appropriate action as described in the previous paragraphs," the commissioners said in a statement. 

People who only voted for two candidates don't need to do anything. 

KDKA's Jessica Guay is following the race for Allegheny County Chief Executive.

KDKA's Chris Derose is following the race for Allegheny County District Attorney.

According to Allegheny County officials, issues that were reported at various polling places are resolved. 

At the Pittsburgh 19-13 polling location, a generator and lights were delivered at approximately 8:50 a.m., allowing for voting to take place inside. 

At the Bethel Park 08-01 and 08-02 locations, voters are able to access the polling place, despite construction in front of the entrance. 

Four authorized representatives are at the elections warehouse, two for the Democratic candidates/party and two for the Republican candidates/party. 

Officials with Allegheny County said the polling place on Norton Street in the city of Pittsburgh had no electricity or power to begin the day.

The electrical lines to the building had been cut as a reported safety precaution, but election workers were not informed of the issue, Allegheny County officials said.

Lights and generators have since been brought in and the polling place is now open to voters.

No other major issues have been reported.

One polling place in Pittsburgh opened about 20 minutes late due to a miscommunication, officials said.

Three polling places, two in Pittsburgh and one in Baldwin, "had judges who slept in or did not show."

Democratic candidate for Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato was in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood just after 7 a.m. to vote in today's election.

"I just voted," Innamorato said. "I feel like today's going to be a great day and the weather's cooperating. It's on our side."

"I know that we built a campaign that looks like the county," Innamorato added. "It talks like the county, that has the diverse experiences of people who live in the county, and that's what makes it a strong campaign and that's what's going to set me up for success when I'm governing."

Polling places are now open throughout the state!

First Alert Meteorologist Ron Smiley's got your election forecast with an unseasonably warm day expected!

For the first time in more than two decades, Allegheny County could have a new top prosecutor. 

Incumbent Stephen Zappala has been the county's district attorney for 26 years and he says he's brought the right balance of criminal justice reform and public safety to the office while modernizing it for the 21st century.  

His challenger Matt Dugan is the county's chief public defender, whose office represents those unable to afford a criminal defense attorney. Dugan says he knows the justice system better than anyone. 

Dugan defeated Zappala in the primary election earlier this year, but Zappala won enough write-in votes to win the Republican nomination and is now seeking to remain in office on that ticket. 

• Several polls show tight race for Allegheny County executive, district attorney
  
• Crime in Pittsburgh heats up Allegheny County DA race
  
• Allegheny County Democrats to choose between incumbent Stephen Zappala and challenger Matt Dugan
  
• Both candidates in Allegheny County DA's race insist they're reformers as money support gets attention

It's been years since Allegheny County has had such a hotly contested race for county executive -- with Democrat Sara Innamorato and Republican Joe Rockey vying for the role as the county's chief executive.

While some always vote party, the choice between Democrat Sara Innamorato and Republican Joe Rockey may well come down to several key issues such as public safety, taxes, and county property assessments.

• Allegheny County executive candidates zero in on their top issue
• Several polls show tight race for Allegheny County executive, district attorney
• Union endorsement of GOP's Rockey raises questions about labor's role in Allegheny County executive race
• Sara Innamorato rejects Joe Rockey's criticism in Allegheny County executive race
• Republican Allegheny County executive candidate Joe Rockey says he's a centrist