By Gabbie Burton
Contributing Writer

Some registered third party voters in Chester County experienced a snag when they arrived at the polls on election day. All of Chester County’s 230 polling locations had faulty poll books that omitted the names of third party voters, Independents and those registered as “No Affiliation” and “Non-Partisan.” The clerical error forced about 12,100 of these voters to fill out provisional ballots.

According to a statement from Chester County Voter Services, the issue was identified shortly after polls opened on Nov. 4 and supplemental books that included the missing voters’ names were distributed to all polling locations by around 5:45 p.m. A court order allowed all polling locations in the county to stay open until 10 p.m. in response to the error. 

Though the provisional ballots provided a temporary solution to the problem, voters across the county expressed concern for the error and county leaders seem intent to identify how such a mistake could occur.

“Our Voter Services team members are among the most conscientious of county employees,” wrote Chester County CEO, David Byerman, over email. “They strive to run every election fairly. This issue represents a serious and most regrettable error. We are ramping up an investigation into how this happened, what controls were in place, whether those processes were followed, and if not, why. We hope to regain the trust of Chester County voters by thoroughly and forthrightly getting to these answers – and publicly reporting the findings – just as soon as we possibly can.”

Other Chester County leaders shared their concerns over the error on social media, including the Chester County State House Delegation who wrote a letter to the Pennsylvania Department of State requesting the department to conduct an investigation into the mistake and to report findings back to the State House and Senate. Additionally, the Chester County government is conducting an independent review. 

“We are working right now to identify an outside firm to provide an independent review,” Byerman wrote. “We’ll also work with the Department of State and we appreciate their subject matter expertise. The formal investigation will begin once all votes have been counted to ensure that the process does not interfere with the certification of the election.”

Byerman stated that while preliminary steps in the investigation process have begun, the primary concern in the days after the election are to review and count every provisional ballot cast. Due to Pennsylvania Election Code, the reviewing of provisional ballots could not begin until Friday, Nov. 7 and as of Monday, over 6,300 provisional ballots have been legally reviewed. After being reviewed, provisional ballots will move on to scanning and tabulation with that process beginning on Tuesday, Nov. 11. 

“We have worked long hours every single day, including weekends and holidays, to get this right,” Byerman wrote. “The provisional ballot review and determination process involves more steps and therefore takes a greater amount of time, per ballot, than the tabulation of regular ballots. But I want to assure voters that all provisional ballots will go through the review and credit process. Any provisional ballots determined properly cast are included in the certified election results.”

The extra steps in the provisional ballot process falls on both voters and election officials. Voters have to complete information on an outer envelope in front of election officials before filling out their provisional ballot, placing the ballot in a secrecy envelope that goes into the outer envelope and signing the envelope in front of officials again before receiving a provisional ballot identification receipt. For county officials, they have to review the information provided on the provisional ballots to confirm that the ballot belongs to a registered voter who voted at their proper precinct before the ballot can be officially counted.

With the process already days underway, Chester County Voter Services released an investigation timeline on Nov. 10. The timeline stated that an independent party will be chosen to conduct the investigation by Nov. 17 and an update will be provided by that party to the Chester County Board of Elections on Nov. 21. The expected deadline for completing the investigation is early to mid December with the final report and recommendations presented to the Board of Elections in December or January.

“As of today, we identified the key questions that must be addressed through the investigation and presented the Board of Elections with several options for how the review can best proceed,” said Byerman in a Nov. 10 press release. “Staff have been instructed to preserve all relevant materials, including evidence and notes, to support the investigatory process. We have also held a preliminary meeting with the Pennsylvania Department of State to understand its capacity to assist in the review.”

While movement is being made on both the counting of the provisional ballots and the investigation process, the effect of the error on voter confidence will require additional effort to properly address. 

“We’ll work to regain the public’s confidence,” Byerman said. “We understand this was a significant error, and we are committed to understanding how this happened and ensuring that we address why it happened.”

Updates on the investigation and counting of provisional ballots will be available on the Chester County website https://www.chesco.org/.