Machine Error Causes Widespread Ballot Issues In Key State Supreme Court Race

A clerical mistake in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday left 75,076 unaffiliated, independent, and third-party voters missing from the electronic poll books at every one of the county’s 230 polling places.

Election officials in Chester County, which boasts 385,856 registered voters, stated that the omission affected nearly one in five. Officials discovered the problem minutes after polls opened at 7 a.m. and traced it to a simple swap, in which workers had loaded the primary election poll book — which list only Democrats and Republicans — instead of the general-election version that includes every affiliation.

Poll workers immediately pivoted to provisional ballots. Voters were asked to fill out a paper ballot, sign the outer envelope, drop it in a locked box, and later received a receipt with a tracking number. The Chester County Board of Elections will open each envelope in the coming days, verify the voter’s registration, and add valid ballots to the official count.

This process generally takes up to two weeks to complete.

County staff printed corrected poll books on the spot and rushed them to precincts through a van, CBS News reported. By 3:45 p.m., every polling place had the full voter list, and late-arriving independents could use the regular machines.

In order to offset morning delays and long lines, a Common Pleas judge extended voting hours until 10 p.m., giving voters two extra hours.

Robert Healy, a 61-year-old independent from West Chester, spent twenty minutes on a provisional ballot and watched two voters behind him leave for work without voting. “It’s the first time in my adult life I’ve worried my vote might not count,” he said.

Some precincts briefly ran low on provisional envelopes, but supervisors confirm every registered voter who stayed in line cast a ballot.

Public Information Officer Becky Brain promised a formal review.

“We will find exactly how third-party voters were left out and fix the process so this never happens again.”

Republican Commissioner Eric Roe called the error “unacceptable” and pledged that every provisional ballot will be “examined with a microscope.” Democratic Commissioner Josh Maxwell echoed the commitment and noted the county’s large stockpile of provisional forms kept the day from becoming a total meltdown.

Chester County uses Pennsylvania’s newer envelope design, which prints the signature line in bold and has cut rejection rates for missing signatures.

In addition to a number of low level municipal elections, Pennsylvania is the site of pivotal state Supreme Court races. While the Democrat-backed judges are listed as “nonpartisan,” they have received millions of dollars in funding from the party and affiliated groups.