Could impact heated congressional race between Murphy, Fitzpatrick

Officials will not start counting absentee ballots in Bucks County until Wednesday, and the close battle between Republican Mike Fitzpatrick and Democrat Patrick Murphy could stretch into Thursday.

The Bucks County Board of Elections said the decision to wait a day before counting the absentee ballots was made last week. All ballots will be counted at the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown.

The most heated race in Bucks County is the 8th congressional district battle between Mr. Murphy, a two-term congressman, and Mr. Fitzpatrick, a former congressman from the district who was defeated by Mr. Murphy in 2006. The 8th district includes all of Bucks County and small portions of Montgomery and Philadelphia counties.

Last week, the Pennsylvania Republican Party alleged the campaign of Mr. Murphy was committing election fraud with absentee ballots.

Mailers sent last week containing absentee ballot applications asked voters to return the applications to a post office box owned by the Democrat Party of Bucks County. The mailer asked voters to return their absentee ballots to the Office of Voter Assistance.

Patricia Poprik, vice chair of the Bucks County Republican Party, said the mailers misled and disenfranchised voters in the county. She called on the Democratic State Committee to reveal how many ballots may have been affected.

“They need to come clean and immediately release the list of applicants who applied for absentee ballots, so voters can be assured that ballots sent to the Democrat’s fictitious Office of Voter Assistance were properly forwarded to the County Courthouse,” said Ms. Poprik.

David Heckler, District Attorney of Bucks County, said last week his office has opened an investigation into possible forgeries on absentee ballot applications. Mr. Heckler said he has found probable cause for violations of the state Election Code.

The chairman of the Bucks County Board of Elections could not be reached for comment Tuesday about whether the decision to wait on counting the absentee ballots was a direct result of the allegations made by Republicans last week.

If the county’s 8,000 absentee ballots cannot be counted by 8 p.m. on Wednesday, the counting will continue Thursday at 8 a.m.

Members of the public and official “watchers” from the campaigns of Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Murphy will be permitted to observe the ballot counting procedure, but will not be allowed to participate.