21-03-2025
Which Windber district judge candidates will be in the primaries after challenges?
SOMERSET ― After a five-hour hearing Thursday before Somerset County Judge Daniel Rullo both challengers for a district judge position will remain on the Democratic ballot and one also on the Republican ballot for the May 20 primary.
Amy Thomas will be on the Democratic ballot and Kayla Kormanik-Lucas will be on both the Democratic and Republican ballots in the primary for Somerset County Magisterial Office 16-3-02.
Both Amy Thomas and Kormanik-Lucas initially cross-filed to be placed on both the Democratic and the Republican ballots.
Magisterial District 16-3-02 includes Benson, Central City, Hooversville, Paint and Windber boroughs; and Ogle, Paint and Shade townships. The county district court is seated in Windber. Current District Judge William Seger is retiring after this term.
At the hearing, the challengers requested Rullo set aside signatures for possible irregularities, mainly a question if some of the signatures were written by the same person. At one point, Rullo said, "I have a hard time understanding how it is the same signature without a handwriting expert. I need a degree of certainty if it is the same hand."
At the beginning of the hearing, Thomas withdrew her nomination petition for being on the Republican Party ballot. Over the next several hours, Thomas, who filed objections to Kormanik-Lucas' challenge to disqualify several signatures on Thomas' nomination petition, went line by line with those signatures she was challenging. She also defended her challenge to many signatures on Kormanik-Lucas nomination petitions.
After withdrawing several challenged names, Thomas needed 19 names to knock Kormanik-Lucas off the Republican ballot for not having the 100 signatures on her nomination petition needed. In the end, she did not have them.
The challenge to signatures on the Democrat nomination petition by Kormanik-Lucas came down to seven signatures that were printed and not in cursive. If more than three of them were put aside by Rullo than she could not be placed on that ballot.
"The law makes it very clear, you have to have a match," Rullo said.
A recess was called so county Elections Director Tina Pritts could access the program that has the voter registration cards to see if the names were printed or cursive on their cards and were a match. In the end, there was not enough names set aside to lower the number of 100 valid signatures needed for Kormanik-Lucas to be placed on the Democrat ballot for the primary.
The affidavits, two filed by Kormanik-Lucas and one by Thomas, indicating a signature was placed on the nomination petitions without their knowledge, suggesting forgeries, were all withdrawn.
Kormanik-Lucas indicated she was happy with the outcome of the hearing and Thomas said she was "thrilled."
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Who ended up on the primary ballots for Windber district judge?
