Harrisburg, PA – After all 67 counties certified their results to the Department of State, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt certified the results of Pennsylvania’s 2024 primary election Friday.
“Careful review of the counties’ election results shows we had another free, fair, safe and secure primary election on April 23,” Schmidt said. “As always, we’re grateful to all the county election officials who worked tirelessly preparing for and conducting a smooth election, followed by weeks of diligently verifying through two audits that all election results were accurate.”
Official vote returns for all statewide primary races can be found on the Department’s website. All results are official with the exception of the race for Representative in the General Assembly-117th District for the Republican Party, which is subject to ongoing litigation.
Additionally, Schmidt announced that the statutorily required statistical recount of a random sample of at least 2% of the ballots cast – or 2,000 ballots, whichever is fewer – in the primary and the risk-limiting audit (RLA) of the Democratic race for state treasurer confirmed the election’s reported outcome.
“The audits have confirmed that the reported primary election results are accurate, which is a testament to the hard work of county election officials,” Schmidt said.
During this RLA, election officials from 27 counties hand-tallied 60 batches of ballots that were randomly selected, which amounted to more than 14,000 ballots reviewed. Officials then compared those vote totals to the original counts.
Schmidt reported that county election officials identified only two vote discrepancies across batches of ballots. Such discrepancies are the result of human error when manually tabulating audit results or stray or unclear marks on the ballot, leading to subjective decisions about a voter’s intent.
This was Pennsylvania’s fourth statewide RLA since the Department issued a directive in September 2022 instructing counties to conduct a pre-certification RLA after every election. For more information about RLAs, visit the Department’s website.
Editor’s note: These 27 counties had at least one batch of ballots randomly selected for the risk-limiting audit: Adams, Allegheny, Bucks, Centre, Chester, Clarion, Clearfield, Columbia, Cumberland, Delaware, Elk, Lancaster, Lawrence, Luzerne, Mercer, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Susquehanna, Venango, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Westmoreland, Wyoming, and York.