It’s time to stop unacceptable election errors

When did our elections go haywire? In Tuesday’s primary in which a 2020 election denier won nomination in our own state’s governor’s race, voting systems continued to be impaired by error and malfunction.

Make no mistake: This was not fraud or cheating. This was just plain incompetence, with counties of our region among the offenders.

The problem is particularly acute in Berks County, where serious issues with this week’s primary are the latest in a series of snafus going back several elections.

A judge ruled Tuesday that all polling places would remain open an hour later after precincts reported technical issues with electronic poll books being used for the first time to check in voters.

The request to extend voting hours was made because of technical problems that arose Tuesday morning. After learning of the problem, election officials rushed backup, paper poll books to each voting precinct in the county.

This was the first election that all county precincts were to use the electronic poll books, which were purchased last year for $1.1 million from Election Systems & Software. The devices have been certified by state election officials, and the county tested them at five voting locations last fall.

Frustration with the problem allowed for a rare moment of bipartisanship.

Kevin Boughter, chairman of the Berks County Democratic Committee, said the poll book issue caused delays at some polls and forced some voters to walk away without casting a ballot.

“It’s been a total disaster at every poll that I’ve received word from,” he said.

Clay Breece, Berks County Republican Committee chairman, said the problems with the devices prove that the county shouldn’t be using them.

“We need to go back to the basics, and we need to get rid of these electronic systems. We need accurate voter integrity,” Breece said.

Abandoning electronic systems is not the answer. They can and do work well in many places and are capable of being much faster and more reliable than old-fashioned methods. The key is competence, and it’s been lacking around here lately.

In this same election cycle Berks County struggled to get mail-in ballots out to voters in time, making it difficult and in some cases impossible for people to cast their ballots.

Last fall there were several mistakes made in Berks, including the mailing of 17,000 ballots with Spanish-language instructions that incorrectly stated the deadline to return mailed ballots, a letter to poll workers listing the wrong date for the election and an error on a school board ballot.

Berks leaders are hiring outside counsel to investigate Tuesday’s problems and they should be taking a close look at the entire elections operation. We urge them to act with greater transparency, making the head of the elections office available to explain what’s happening rather than relying on a spokesperson.

Meanwhile in Lancaster County, printing mistakes forced election officials to redo thousands of mailed ballots that scanning machines could not read. The problem involved at least 21,000 ballots, only a third of which were scanning properly. Montgomery County has endured problems with ballot errors as well.

The expanded use of electronic systems is meant to improve accuracy and integrity of elections. But errors like these create a loss of faith. The dedicated poll workers and elections office employees whose efforts are unduly maligned have to endure the stress of incompetence in systems vetting and training that is out of their control.

Pennsylvania Department of State and county elections officials must do a better job in examining processes, vetting vendors and ensuring proper training and testing of equipment. There are months between election cycles; there is no excuse for discovering problems as voting is taking place.

We believe voting is conducted with honesty in Pennsylvania, but we also need to trust that the systems work correctly. Anything less is just not acceptable.