In Warren County, a recount of ballots cast in a Commonwealth Court race resulted in one less vote for one of the candidates involved in a tight race.

The state-wide race for Commonwealth Court judge was so tight it set off a mandatory state-wide recount.

Top vote-getter Republican Stacy Wallace secured one of the two available seats.

The voting for other seat had two candidates within one half of one percent. That triggered a mandatory recount according to a 2004 law.

Lori Dumas, a Democrat, showed 1,351,842 votes initially (25.4 percent), while Drew Crompton, a Republican, showed 1,293,254 votes (25 percent).

Wallace carried Warren County with 5,278 votes according to county elections data with Crompton (4,920) coming in second and Dumas (2,417) third.

The county’s recount began at 9 a.m. Thursday and all counties had to complete their counts by noon Tuesday and submit results no later than Wednesday.

Only the commonwealth court race results were analyzed.

“What we had to go through and do was adjudicate the race,” Warren County Deputy Director of Elections Krystle Ransom said. “It wasn’t required initially.”

Adjudication requires that officials put eyes on ballots checking all ballots recorded as overvotes and undervotes. There were 1,778 instances of those.

Because the race was a tight one, the state wanted every detail available.

Ransom said the process went smoothly locally and the results were “spot on.”

The county’s adjudicating eyes found three situations that resulted in changing the totals. Two of those were related to Wallace’s total and not significant to the race between Dumas and Crompton.

Adjudicators had to interpret voter intent in a few instances. A check mark on a ballot that was counted by the computer as an undervote because the circle was not filled in properly, could add a vote. Similarly, in a vote-for-two situation, the scanner might mark a ballot as an overvote, accepting no votes, with two proper circles and a mysterious mark in a third location. If the adjudicators rule that mark was not a vote, the two proper votes would then count.

There were 14,694 total votes cast in the race in Warren County. After adjudication it was determined that 5,280 were for Wallace (plus 2), 4,919 were for Crompton (minus 1) and 2,417 were for Dumas (same). The remainder were cast for other candidates not in a position to win one of the two seats.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of State, the Commonwealth Court is an intermediate appellate court that primarily handles matters involving state and local governments.

The Department estimated the recount would cost a total of at least $1.3 million.