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Democrats claim majority in Pennsylvania House as Burns holds lead in his Cambria County district

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Democrats claim majority in Pennsylvania House as Burns holds lead in his Cambria County district

Nov 08, 2024 | 11:33 am ET
By Peter Hall
Democrats claim majority in Pennsylvania House as Burns holds lead in his Cambria County district
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The ceiling of the main Rotunda inside Pennsylvania’s Capitol building. (Photo by Amanda Berg for the Capital-Star).

Democrats claimed victory Friday morning in their fight to retain a one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with Cambria County incumbent Rep. Frank Burns holding a nearly 3 point lead over his Republican challenger.

Cambria County elections officials posted results overnight after working since Tuesday to recover from a voting system malfunction caused by misprinted ballots that could not be scanned electronically.

With more than 96% of ballots counted, Burns had 16,623 votes, a 936 vote lead over Republican Amy Bradley, a former television journalist and president of the Cambria Region Chamber of Commerce.

Democrats claim majority in Pennsylvania House as Burns holds lead in his Cambria County district
State Rep. Frank Burns, D-Cambria (Pa. House photo)

The 72nd Legislative District, where Burns has served since 2009, is entirely within Cambria County, which President-elect Donald Trump carried by more than 30 points this year, according to unofficial tallies. The district includes the city of Johnstown.

“I am incredibly humbled to have received the only endorsements that matter, the votes of Cambria County people,” Burns said in a statement Friday. “Thank you for your support and trust. I remain dedicated to improving our local economy, making our communities safer, and bringing back more state resources to invest in Cambria County.”

Bradley said she had hoped to serve in the state House to help improve the climate for business in Pennsylvania and ensure opportunities so that areas like Cambria County could stem the loss of population as young people move elsewhere in search of work. Bradley decided to run against Burns, she said, because she did not believe he was engaging positively with people in the district.

“Obviously I’m really disappointed,” Bradley said. “I personally knocked on over 11,000 doors.”

Democrats won control of the state House in 2022 for the first time in 12 years. Since then, the party has retained the majority in eight special elections. Democratic leaders said the majority has allowed them to work with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to pass legislation to provide tax relief for working families and seniors in addition to school funding reform.

“This is a historic win for the DLCC and our allies in Pennsylvania. Protecting the Democratic majority in the Pennsylvania House was one of the most challenging yet important priorities of the cycle, and Pennsylvania Democrats and the DLCC worked closely together to clinch this decisive victory. Republicans made flipping this chamber a top priority, but they failed to gain a single seat,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, an arm of the national Democratic Party that backs state legislative campaigns.

Williams said the Democratic majority in the House would serve as a check on “Republican extremism” and said the Committee would continue to make Pennsylvania a priority as it works toward a trifecta of controlling both chambers of the state Legislature and the governor’s office.

In the state Senate, each party flipped one seat but the Republicans retained a 28-22 majority.

Cambria County President Commissioner Scott Hunt said in a news conference Tuesday that election officials encountered problems scanning ballots immediately after polls opened at 7 a.m. 

The Board of Elections filed a petition for emergency relief in Cambria County Court for permission to keep polls open late due to the malfunctions. President Judge Linda Rovder Fleming issued an order late Tuesday morning granting the board’s request to extend voting hours until 10 p.m. Tuesday. Any votes cast after 8 p.m. were to be cast by provisional ballot, the order said.

Meanwhile, county officials scrambled to cope with the ballot problem. In consultation with the Department of State and county solicitor, election workers were instructed to store unscanned ballots in the lockboxes where they would otherwise be stored after scanning, Solicitor Ronald Repak told the Capital-Star on Wednesday.

But after the lockboxes were full, the Board of Elections again consulted the Department of State and solicitor to authorize sheriffs’ deputies to collect the ballots and deliver them to the elections office.

Since polls closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the board of elections worked to ensure that all of the ballots are counted accurately, Repak said. The ballots that could not be scanned, which includes all of the ballots voted before about 3 p.m. Tuesday, were duplicated by hand by election officials with representatives of each party watching, Repak said, adding that he was uncertain how many ballots were in that category.