And on the 818th day after the 2020 presidential election, Forrest Lehman, director of Voter Services, was joined by the board of elections in saying it is done — the hand recount is over, there was no fraud, no thousands of ballots that weren’t counted — it’s time to move on.

“Each day that passes brings the next presidential election that much closer, and it puts the last one that much further in the rearview mirror. The country is moving on. And now that this hand count is complete, it is time to move on here in Lycoming County as well,” said Lehman.

The hand recount of two races in the 2020 presidential election, which had been requested by a group of county

residents, was completed in two and a half days earlier this month at a cost of $11,452.97, according to Commissioner Scott Metzger, who with fellow commissioners Rick Mirabito and Tony Mussare, serve as the county’s board of elections.

Metzger, who along with Mussare cast the two votes to conduct the recount, emphasized that estimates and predictions of what the recount would cost — which Metzger characterized as “rumors” — were far higher than the final sum of about $11,450.

“It’s not $217,000. It’s not $150,000. It’s not $50,000. It’s 10 cents for every resident in the county. Ten cents for every resident in this county to make sure that our tabulators match the ballots. It’s 10 cents for every resident to make sure that we had the poll workers’ backs. Ten cents to show that in Lycoming County, it’s accurate and we do it right,” Metzger said.

“We’ve done our due diligence. As far as I’m concerned, Forrest has done his job. He’s done an excellent job doing this whether you agree with it or not, those are the facts. Those are the numbers. It’s time to move on. It’s done,” Metzger said.

The first public comment segment at this week’s Board of Elections meeting, began with Karen DiSalvo, a local lawyer, listing a litany of instances of alleged irregularities across the county from the 2020 presidential election, many which have been contested or disproved.

Although she commended the board for voting for the hand recount, she stated that she still would have liked to have seen more transparency with the process.

DiSalvo shared that a representative from the local Republican committee who served as an observer at the recount had been told that he could not see the tally sheets which were compiled at the end of each day before they were processed by Lehman.

“We were told you can file a Right to Know request,” she said, adding that they had as soon as they heard the recount was finished, but were still waiting to see the tally sheets.

Comparing the county doing the hand recount to a bank doing an audit, DiSalvo said, “If a bank orders an audit, they do not have the bank manager do an audit at his own bank. That is not transparency.”

Even though several people in addition to the board and Lehman, said it was time for the county to move on, DiSalvo indicated that the recount was just one more piece of the puzzle that the group she is aligned with, which she called “the grassroots” in her comments, has asked for.

“So what did we learn from this process? Hand counts can be done quickly and efficiently,” she said.

Returning to the argument the group presented last year to the board that they would like to move away from electronic voting systems, DiSalvo said, “If a process was put in place whereby we can hand count after each election, we could trust but verify, we could be sure that the vote flipping…was not happening here,” she said.

The hand recount conducted by the county did not reveal any voting irregularities such as those alleged by DiSalvo.

That fact was backed up by the detailed presentation by Lehman at the meeting of how the recount was conducted and how the counts were tallied.

But, the facts delivered by Lehman didn’t seem sufficient for “the grassroots” as DiSalvo called them, as they have indicated that the military and overseas ballots are the next target of their distrust.

“We have quotes on the record and local news coverage stating that military and overseas voters have become the new target to be investigated,” Lehman said.

“There were only about 200 military and overseas voters in 2020. So, it’s already an example of trying to change the subject because it’s trying to silently shift the conversation away from allegations about thousands of votes and down to 200 votes and hoping no one notices,” he said.

Overseas voters include military personnel, missionaries and civilians who are working or studying abroad, Lehman noted.

“Sadly, these voters are now targets. For what reason is anybody’s guess because we’ve not heard any coherent argument or evidence to suggest that our military and overseas voters are guilty of fraud. Anyone attacking lawful votes cast by military and overseas voters had better be right because it would be embarrassing to go out on a limb and be wrong,” he said.

One of the issues that has driven the look into the 2020 presidential election by the group of county residents is the idea that their candidate, Donald Trump, won the county, but not by the margin that they thought it should have been.

The irregularities or anomalies as they allege pointed to a lack of integrity in the election process, particularly the electronic voting system, which they claimed could be hacked, something that has not been known to happen with the machines used by the county.

“Six months ago in this room I stated that no one is entitled to an election outcome based on voter registration number or polling numbers or statistics. That’s not how democracy works,” Lehman said.

“The way it actually works is you win some and you lose some because voters can do whatever they want,” he said. “They can split their tickets. They can violate expectations. And that’s exactly what they did in 2020 — they did what they wanted.”