Feb 3, 2026 - Board of Elections Mtg Summary

Subject: I’m glad I went to the ChesCo Board of Elections meeting…

Yesterday, I attended a public meeting of the Chester County Board of Elections.  To address the issue with the poll books that occurred in the most recent election on Nov 4, 2025.

At first, all Independent voters were missing from the poll books, so those people had to vote by provisional ballot or come back later.  This was corrected 4 hours later and the polls stayed open an extra 2 hours to make sure everyone got a chance to vote.

There were a lot of angry people at the meeting.

So, I’m glad my wife and her friends talked me into going. Just to add one more sensible person to the mix.  Even if I didn’t say anything to anyone, I could at least be one more person NOT applauding when crazy things were said.  You should do the same, for any such meetings that you hear about in the future.

Here’s what happened…

First the board members spoke, acknowledging that there had been an issue.  That Independents were left off at first, as though it were a primary election where only registered party members can vote for the candidates running in their party.  Explained what happened and how it was resolved that same day.  How they plan to prevent it ever happening again. Apologized to the public.

Then FEKM, a legal firm hired by the county, gave a slide show presentation on the details of their investigation. What exactly went wrong (wrong checkbox clicked in a computer screen).  How it was not caught.  Plans to make sure it never happens again.  Etc.

They emphasized that it was truly an accident.  Caused by human error.  And by the lack of software validation of some user inputs.  Perhaps made more likely by the fact that the Voter Services department is understaffed, underpaid, undertrained, undersupervised, and under a lot of stress.  Also working with tight time constraints.  Only a week to get the poll books generated, reviewed, printed and distributed to all the precincts. Can’t start until after the deadline for people to mail in ballots, and must be done before Election Day, 7 days later.

But the error was certainly not intentional.  Everyone they interviewed was mortified that it happened.  Spoke freely and openly about what happened, how it happened, etc. Made suggestions for improvement.  No one evaded their questions, or tried to not answer completely.  No evidence that anyone had a hidden agenda and wanted this to happen.

Then the floor was opened up to comments from the public.

Immediately, a long line of people formed.  One by one, they came to the podium and blamed the Chester County board and the director of the Voter Services department.

Some reasonable comments like:

• Should not have happened
• Need more quality checkpoints in the process
• Need better training and supervision of junior employees
• Very discouraging to 40% of voters who don’t bother to vote, many because they don’t trust the system
• Need better communication between Voter Services and the JOEs who run the polling places.  Especially in a crisis.
• Good job on finding and fixing the problem that same day and making sure everyone got a chance to vote
• Please follow through on your action plan to prevent it from ever happening again

Many more personal and extreme comments like:

• Heads should roll
• I told you so
• I’ve been coming to these meetings for 5 years and you never listen to me
• You should resign
• You should be fired
• You should be sued
• And comments like…
• Foreign countries were behind it, trying to add non-citizens to the poll books
• Standard FoxNews talking point
• Citing total number of registered Independents as though that many people were prevented from voting
• From a guy who bragged about being a lawyer, and cited all sorts of impressive sounding laws and legal cases, but who totally missed the fact that his number was irrelevant:

– Actually:

– 40% of eligible voters don’t even bother to vote

– Many voters had voted in advance by mail

– Many voters were able to come back later and vote normally

– Many voters voted by provisional ballot, and those votes were correctly counted

– A MUCH smaller number of people failed to vote due to the error.  The Board will be surveying the JOEs (Judges Of Election) from all precincts to find out what they saw that day.  Did most people come back later and vote successfully?  Roughly how many in each precinct failed to vote due to the error?  It’s already pretty evident that the numbers are low, but it would be good to poll the JOEs for explicit confirmation.

• More investigation would nullify the election
   – Not true.  The total possible number of voters who were prevented from voting is WAY less than the margin of victory for most (all?) of the races.  Also, can’t assume that all of those voters would have voted for the candidate who lost.  Many (most?) would have supported the candidate who won anyhow.

   

• Excessive and reckless disregard, actual harm, dereliction of duty, disenfranchisement, disciplinary action, legal liability, etc.

  – But only for the 2 Democratic board members, NOT the Republican one
• The candidates who lost should SUE the commissioners
     – They’re free to try, but it would be really hard to make any sort of a case for it.  Most likely, they would have lost anyhow, for the reasons given above.
• FEKM is not an “outside firm”.  They’re insiders who paid off the commissioners for the job, and glossed over the corruption.
     – Not true.  As various board members said later:
        – No campaign contributions.  No inside relationship.
        – Firm to do the investigation was chosen by the Voter Services staff, NOT by the commissioners, specifically to avoid possible future claims of favoritism.
• Don’t blame compensation.  That’s NEVER a factor in employee retention, only in recruiting.  No one EVER quits because salary is too low.
     – Not true, I think.  Does it sound true to you?

The worst for me, was one guy who stood up, identified himself as a JOE, then after making personal attacks on the board members, said he was a Republican and referred us to documents posted at a site called “Phoenixville Republicans”. I visited that web site briefly.  It’s extremely partisan.

I’ve met 3 JOEs personally, from various precincts.  All of them were Republicans, I think.  But ALL of them put that aside to perform their jobs.  They were very good at running their polling place, resolving issues, making sure everyone got a chance to vote, regardless of party.  Even if they knew the person was likely to vote against their own interests.

It’s a fundamental job requirement for a JOE (a JUDGE of Elections) to be impartial.  And most of them seem to take it as a badge of honor.  Why is this one JOE getting away with being so clearly biased?  Do voters from all parties have an equal chance of voting in his precinct?  I suspect not.  If he were an honorable “judge”, he would “recuse” himself from the job.  If not, he should be removed.

As the comments were winding down, I stood up to say:

– Most of the people who’ve spoken so far seem to be politically motivated activists, and conspiracy theorists.  Not representative of the voters in general.  Blasting you for being Democrats.  Came with agendas.  Note how many said: “as I told you” or “I’ve come to many of these meetings”.  Take them with a grain of salt.  They do NOT accurately represent your constituents.

As I walked back to my seat, I was pleased to note that my comments got more applause than ANY of the previous speakers.  The speakers were largely angry, biased and poorly informed.  But there were more sensible people sitting quietly in the room than I’d realized.

Not only do the angry speakers not really represent the voters.  They didn’t even represent the people in the room, who were all relatively political people, based on the fact that they’d all come out in sub-freezing weather for a long 3 hour meeting after dark.

Also, as I walked back to my seat, I got flipped off by one of the angry speakers and heard another hiss “A**hole” at me.

I can understand why they’re so angry, and feeling so impotent and ineffective.  In the past decade or so, Chester County has turned from red to blue.  They should get used to the idea, and perhaps try to reform the Republican Party to counter that effect.

But many are instead looking for someone to blame.  They claim it’s a wave of unwelcome Democratic newcomers moving into their beloved old Chester County.  But many of us have lived here for much longer that that.  I’ve lived here for 33 years.  More than half my life.  Before that I grew up in other Philly suburbs.

The angry speakers should recognize that much of the shift from red to blue has been due to a change in attitude, not a change in demographics.  Former Republicans are abandoning the party because it’s gotten too extreme and angry for them.

Anyhow, you should come to any such meetings that you hear about.  Just to add one more sensible person to the mix.  Even if you don’t get up to speak (I didn’t originally plan to), you can at least be one more person NOT applauding when crazy things are said.

If you have any comments on the poll books issue, feel free to mail the commissioners at:
CCElectionOfficials@ChesCo.org