Two days after the election, Chester County officials released additional information about the poll book error that took place on Nov. 4—the poll books that were initially distributed to all 230 precincts throughout Chester County did not include the names of voters registered with third parties. Once the issue was discovered, the county’s Department of Voter Services was able to distribute supplemental poll books to every polling location, but because of the mistake those legally registered voters whose names were excluded from the poll books had to vote by provisional ballot. County officials estimate that there were more than 12,000 provisional ballots cast throughout the day.

County officials have pledged to find out how the error occurred.

In the press release issued two days after the election, the statement read, “Preliminary review steps are already underway to gather information and assess the scope of the issue. However, the more detailed and comprehensive phase of the investigation will proceed after the certification of all election results, once every vote—including provisional ballots—has been fully reviewed and certified.”

The statement also addressed the issue of who is responsible for the error, explaining that, “The purpose of the review is to answer exactly that. Our goal is to understand what happened and why, identify any points of failure, and take corrective action to make sure that Chester County voters are never again affected by such an issue.”

We hope that every part of that is true. We hope that the review allows county officials to understand what happened, and how. We hope that the review also allows county officials to take corrective action. And we hope that county residents are never again affected by such an issue.

Look, mistakes are going to happen, but the administration of elections is very important and residents need to be able to trust that the elections are fair and accurate. Sending out poll books with thousands of names omitted is certainly a bad look for those in charge of administering the election, even if the impact of the mistake was mitigated as much as possible throughout the day. Clearly, county officials have an obligation to “take corrective action to make sure that Chester County voters are never again affected by such an issue.”