Chester County certifies election results in tense meeting amid poll book controversy

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The Chester County Board of Elections voted 2-1 Friday to certify the 2025 general election results amid an ongoing investigation into how third-party voters were left out of poll books.

Officials issued another round of apologies at the meeting as irate attendees voiced their frustration. Some even lobbed unfounded allegations of a broader conspiracy of fraud.

Calls for resignations and even criminal probes dominated the lengthy public comment sections that preceded and followed the vote to certify the election.

Commissioner Josh Maxwell, the chair of the board, voted to formally certify the results and apologized again for the poll book error.

“To all the independents in this county, the people who were disenfranchised, I am extraordinarily sorry. Know that it is my commitment and this government’s commitment to earn your trust and to make it up to you,” Maxwell said.

The lone Republican on the board, Commissioner Eric Roe, voted against certifying the results. He said his “confidence in the administration of the elections in Chester County is shaken.”

Roe did not dispute the winners.

“I’m gonna presume that, in fact, they did,” Roe said. “But what I’m certifying here today is that the results are accurate — and I can’t say for sure. I’m not implying that anything nefarious happened. I’m not implying that there was intentional malfeasance. There’s an investigation that will look into that, and I’ve been promised that that will be looked into. I’m simply saying that in chaos and in disorder, with rapidly changing rules and directives, it’s too difficult for me, Eric Roe, to be confident in the accuracy of our tabulations.”

Investigation into poll book error is ongoing as outrage continues

An Election Day error omitted roughly 70,000 third-party voters from poll books in the county, which forced 12,600 people to cast provisional ballots.

The county tapped West Chester-based law firm Fleck Eckert Klein McGarry to investigate how it happened.

“One of two things is true. Either we had insufficient controls to prevent one person’s mistake from snowballing into what happened on Election Day,” said David Byerman, chief executive officer of county government, during the meeting. “Or the procedures we had in place were not followed. We understand that neither of those explanations are acceptable to the senior management team, presumably to our Board of Elections and certainly to the voters of Chester County.”

Megan Moser, chief experience officer of county government, said the law firm is on track to complete its investigation by the Dec. 19 deadline.

“In terms of where we are with status, the law firm is currently conducting interviews with staff, reviewing electronic communications and the technical system involved in poll book production,” Moser said.

Karen Barsum, the director of the county’s Department of Voter Services, provided a procedural rundown of the general election and shared that there were numerous races where candidates won via write-in.

A tiebreaker event took place on Dec. 2.

“This event determines the winners in 87 contests, which affected over 550 candidates,” Barsum said. “Close to 50 contests will have an elected official who won by one vote. Please keep in mind that during a municipal election year, there are several school districts that cross county lines. This means that our results alone do not reflect the final winner of those contests.”

During Barsum’s presentation, Roe questioned her about directives to poll workers on Election Day once the poll book error was discovered.

He indicated that another method outside of provisional ballots was used that allowed people to vote, one that allowed affected voters to be cross-referenced with a list and permitted to write their name on the back of the poll book. Roe said he was “just concerned that people may have voted twice or may have voted when they, in fact, were not eligible.”

Prior to the first round of public comments before the certification of the results, county officials tried assuaging the fears of attendees while also apologizing.

“I think it’s possible to share two contradictory thoughts,” Byerman said. “One is [that] there was a serious mistake and error that occurred here. And two is that we have a number of very conscientious Chester County employees who worked very hard in the weeks after the election to work the problem, to process over 2.5 times the number of provisional ballots that have ever been cast in any election, including presidential elections, and who really dedicated themselves to fixing this problem.”

Some like Kent Kingan, of Chester County, acknowledged the severity of the problem and the county’s actions to fix it — and reiterated their belief that the election must be certified.

“I think not certifying this election would be to disenfranchise over 100,000 voters and that I think would be a real shame to democracy,” Kingan said.

Other attendees remained unconvinced and encouraged spectators to take action.

“Every single person who feels that their civil rights have been violated by this election can file a complaint with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division,” said Sandra Bowman, of Chester County. “I did that.”