Berks County misfires again on election date, this time in letter to poll workers
Berks County has sent out election material with the wrong date for Election Day for the second time.
A letter dated Oct. 28 was sent to 800 poll workers informing them that due to various vacancies it was necessary for the election board to appoint them to positions.
The letter twice refers to the date of the election as November 3, 2020. The actual date of the election is November 2, 2021.
The Reading Eagle was contacted Saturday by a poll worker who received the letter and asked to remain anonymous.
In a statement released Saturday afternoon, election officials said the letter sent to appointed poll workers this week was not updated correctly and contained the wrong date for Election Day.
They said the letter informing these individuals of their appointment is the same letter that was utilized last year and listed Nov. 3, 2020.
“The county has determined that the letter was not properly proofread before being sent out,” the statement said. “The elections staff is in the process of calling the judge of elections for each of the county’s 202 precincts to instruct the judge
of elections to contact their poll working staff to confirm the correct date.
“The county determined this is the most efficient manner to communicate with these individuals since a letter sent by mail may not reach them in time.”
The statement also apologizes for the error and any confusion or inconvenience it may cause.
The news of the erroneous letter to poll workers comes after it was discovered on October 20 that the county had mailed out 17,000 ballots with Spanish-language
instructions that incorrectly stated that the deadline to return mailed ballots to the county is 8 p.m. on November 18. The correct time and date is 8 p.m. November 2.
The date is correct in the English instructions.
The commissioners have taken responsibility for the mistake and said they know how it was made. They said the instructions were based on a template from the May 18, 2021, primary. The month was changed for the general election, but the day of the month was not.
They have since corrected the error on Spanish-language instructions that were sent out more recently and sent letters out to all 17,000 people who received the erroneous information. They have also been publicizing the correct information through various means.
Commissioners Chairman Christian Leinbach has said that the election board conducted a thorough investigation to find out how the mistake happened. They found that in this case there was one person who composed the instruction sheet and that no one else ever checked it for accuracy before it was sent out.
It was not known if the same person was responsible for both mistakes.
The board announced Thursday, the same day the letter to the poll workers was mailed, that moving forward all election materials will be verified by two people to ensure an error like the one on the instruction sheet never happened again.