Luzerne County Councilman Schnee declares victory in 116th state rep race

Luzerne County Councilman Robert Schnee declared his victory Tuesday night in the special election for state representative in the 116th Legislative District, which means his council seat will become vacant.

Democrat Amilcar Arroyo and Libertarian Paul Cwalina also ran for the seat to fill the remainder of Tarah Toohil’s state representative term through this year. Toohil is now a county judge.

“It’s just a great feeling that I have great friends who came out,” said Schnee, 62, of Sugarloaf Township. “It’s so humbling.”

Schnee said he was particularly thankful because the voters had to go out of their way to cast ballots outside the usual primary and general elections.

“They didn’t have to come out. We had supporters who worked constantly throughout the day and the campaign,” he said.

With all 33 precincts in the 116th District reported, unofficial results show Schnee received 2,797 votes. The tally was 1,262 for Arroyo and 211 for Cwalina.

A total 721 write-in votes were cast, but the number would not be enough to change the outcome, even if they were all for one person.

Because 1,535 votes separated Schnee and Arroyo, it does not appear the number of outstanding votes would impact the results

The county Election Board has court authority to tally mail ballots from up to 305 voters if they were postmarked by Monday and arrive in the election bureau by mail before 4 p.m. April 11. This measure was approved because the 305 voters received their mail ballots late due to a state glitch in uploading voter data to the county, officials said.

Also, the board may have to rule on tallying paper provisional ballots cast at the polls and mail ballots flagged due to issues, such as missing dates on the outer envelopes. The county did not have a count on how many fell into that category, but it was not expected to be high enough to change the outcome.

A retired Hazleton City Authority meter reader, Schnee said he wanted to serve as a state legislator to fight for the elderly, people in need and working families.

He also pledged to fight two Interstate 80 tolls in the county and push for equitable funding for the Hazleton Area School District, saying districts of equal enrollment are receiving higher payments under the current system.

Schnee has been serving on county council since 2016.

After the election is certified, council must declare the seat vacant and select someone to fill the remainder of the seat through 2023.

Councilman Stephen J. Urban already publicly predicted there will be a disagreement over whether council must fill the seat with a Democrat or Republican.

Schnee was elected as a Democrat in 2019 but subsequently changed his registration to Republican.

Section 11.05 (G) of the county’s home rule charter says the person appointed “shall be a member of the same political party as the person he/she is to succeed and shall have been a member of that party continuously from the time the person whose office is to be filled was most recently elected or appointed to the office.”