CLEARFIELD – Clearfield County voters chose Republicans during Tuesday’s midterm election.
As of 1:49 a.m., unofficial results show 21,614 (69.77 percent) ballots were cast for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz.
There were 8,430 (27.21 percent) ballots cast for his Democratic opponent and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
In the race for governor, 20,204 (65.15 percent) ballots were cast for Republican Doug Mastriano.
On the other side, 10,226 (32.97 percent) ballots were cast for his Democratic opponent and current state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Shapiro has been called the state’s next governor while Fetterman claimed the senate race in the early-morning hours Wednesday.
For the U.S. 15th Congressional District, 23,726 (76.78 percent) ballots were cast for Republican incumbent Glenn “GT” Thompson.
On the other side, 7,176 (23.22 percent) ballots were cast for his Democratic opponent Michael Molesevich.
Thompson celebrated his re-election Tuesday night in Lock Haven at his Clinton County Headquarters.
For Pennsylvania’s 75th district, 9,880 (76.76 percent) ballots were cast for Republican State Rep. Michael Armanini, who won re-election.
There were 2,992 (23.24 percent) ballots cast for his Democratic opponent Erica Vogt.
Finally, 15,610 ballots were cast for Republican State Rep. candidate Dallas Kephart, who was unopposed for the 73rd District.
Results, at press time, didn’t include absentee/mail ballots and are unofficial until certified by the Board of Elections.
The county issued 4,977 absentee/mail ballots, and of those, 4,631 were returned by 8 p.m. election night.
Overall, the election went smoothly, according to County Commissioner Chairman John A. Sobel.
The only glitch of the day involved Clearfield Borough Second Ward Precinct’s ballot tabulating machine, he said.
“[It] was not properly initialized and caused a delay in counting some ballots, which were properly stored,” Sobel explained.
“The Election Board did decide to temporarily stop the voting process to reset the machine to zero.
Afterwards, officials “resubmitted all the ballots into the machine in order to ensure trust in the system.”
This caused a delay for some of the voters, Sobel said; however, once the process was completed, matters returned to normal.
Sobel, on behalf of county election officials, thanked voters and precinct officials for their patience.
