Administrative election errors rise as Pa. counties struggle to keep voting officials

‘A battle plan for disaster’

Barry, the GOP chair from Greene County, thinks part of the problem is that the Department of State does not provide enough training for local officials, and takes too long to get back to directors with answers to their questions.

“They can be bright, but they really have no training,” he said, adding that he sees a cycle where directors come in, receive little training, and burn out.

“It’s a battle plan for disaster. There’s no other way to say it.”

Matt Heckel, press secretary for the Department of State, said the agency recognizes the importance of training in light of the number of election officials who have left their jobs since 2020. It has recently hired a new training manager dedicated to working with county officials.

The department said it has made other changes to support local election officials next year, including establishing a dedicated elections training team, contacting each county to identify their needs, creating a comprehensive calendar of duties and deadlines in 2024, providing a ballot review checklist, conducting trainings on updating voter rolls, and reviewing logic and accuracy testing, among other things.

The department is also planning to hold a training on reporting election night results and provide directors with a video of basics on how to use the statewide voter registration system.

Marshall, the Greene County chief clerk, said the Department of State offers support, but there are limits to that because elections are the responsibility of counties and the agency often ends up recommending the county consult with its attorney.

“So they’ll give us guidance or suggested procedures but that clear ‘Here is what you do’ is not there,” he said.

Coulter, of the Open Source Election Technology Institute, said that jurisdictions where vote by mail is new typically see an increase in errors. No-excuse mail voting was introduced in Pennsylvania in 2019 and implemented the following year. She also stressed that in her research, she typically found that errors were quickly caught and fixed.

“Even the best election directors have ballot printing errors,” she said. “The election directors who I think really handle things the best go, ‘Hey, this happened. We’re working overtime to get you this ballot. We apologize for the error. We’ll make it right.’ I think that really goes a long way instead of just playing ostrich.”

Greene County canceled and reissued ballots upon discovering the errors, as did Potter County. Lancaster County resisted doing so and settled on allowing voters to come into the office to have their ballot reissued.

Greenburg said the best strategy from his election administrator days was to take the ballot from the last comparable election, which in this case would have been the 2019 municipal election, and begin building the ballot from that. He would advise new directors to start there.

“The more experienced we get, the less often you will see those errors,” he said. “I am cautiously optimistic that we will not see a repeat of those next year.” The presidential election ballot, he said, is the least complicated.

Errors in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested swing state, tend to draw outsized scrutiny.

Luzerne County’s 2022 ballot paper shortage drew national attention and a congressional hearing. Schmidt told Politico last month, after right-wing figures picked up on Northampton’s issue, that “the broader concern is that an incident like this would be misused to undermine confidence.”

“That is absolutely a risk that could happen, especially heading into 2024, which is going to be incredibly contentious,” Coulter said. “On the other hand, is it a best practice to sweep everything under the rug and pretend everything is fine when something clearly went wrong? It’s a really delicate balance there.”

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