Human Error
by Auciel Hicks, Kyle Hudson
At the Chester County Board of Elections meeting on Feb 3rd, attorneys Sigmund Fleck and Andrew Eckert (of law firm Fleck, Eckert, and Klein) finally presented the results of their investigation into the issues which affected the county’s elections in 2025.
Last November, all third-party Chester County voters — approximately 70,000 — were excluded from the poll books. This led to confusion at the polls when third-party voters arrived and were not among the voters listed as eligible for casting their vote in the general election. Many filled out provisional ballots, but others just signed the back of the poll book and voted via normal ballot. This led to a lawsuit by the Republican Party of Chester County that was ultimately dropped.
Following the issue, Chester County government hired Fleck, Eckert, & Klein to conduct an independent inves- tigation into what caused these errors. At the meeting on Tuesday, Fleck and Eckert shared a general overview of the process in which poll books are generated, printed, and delivered to the polls. After this explanation, Fleck and Eckert listed multiple flaws they concluded were responsible for the exclusion of third party voters in November.
Ultimately, human error was found to be the cause of the issue, in addition to the outdated software provided by the Department of State. Fleck and Eckert also strongly suggested the Voter Services department implement stronger supervision and better training on how to operate the software tools, citing how the two Voter Services employees assigned with creating the flawed poll books in November received no supervisor assistance in spite of the fact they were totally new to the process. Additionally, suggestions to avoid future mistake included adding manual review of the poll book files before they are sent to the printer.
After the presentation by Fleck and Eckert, Chester County’s Chief Experience Officer Megan Moser discussed the action plan developed by the Board of Elections and other county officials in response to the law firm’s suggestions. The action plan consisted of 14 points, though Moser emphasized it was a living document and is open to change depending on additional findings. Moser stated the county’s goal is to have all changes implemented this year.
The second investigation mentioned during the meeting was into why the Prothonotary race was left off the ballot. This was stated to be the result of Chester County solicitor, Colleen Frens. Prior to the May primary election, a Voter Services employee reached out to Frens via email to inquire if the position should be included in the ballot, to which Frens erroneously responded that it should not.
When a member of elected office resigns, their successor is supposed to be decided by a special election unless the resignation happens within 90 days of the next election. Former prothonotary, Debbie Bookman (D), resigned in October 2024, well outside the 90 window, meaning the office should indeed have been listed on the May ballot. Due to the exclusion, school board member Alex Christy (D) was appointed to the position by Governor Shapiro to fill the office for the remainder of Debbie Bookman’s term. Bookman is currently facing a charge of misapplication of entrusted property and property of government or financial institutions, which is a second-degree misdemeanor.
Lastly, the meeting concluded with a period of public comment lasting about 90 minutes. Most County residents who spoke expressed frustration at the report’s outcome. One of the people who spoke was former voter services employee, Nathan Prospero Fox, who laid the blame for the mistakes on leadership at Voter Services. “All 67 counties are facing the (continued from page 1) same issue; the only difference is management,” said Fox, before ending his public statement with a call for termination of his former supervisor, Karen Barsoum, who Fox claimed was the cause of consistent turnover in the department.
At the meeting’s conclusion, we spoke further with county commissioner Josh Maxwell about what Chester County plans to do moving forward. He said, “We have some work to do to put better procedures in place. Checks on work, especially important work, [like] looking at poll books and working with the Department of State to improve mechanisms to look for checks in the couple-decade-old computer system. Elections are very complicated, the county made an egregious error, and now we have a plan in place to fix it, so this is a starter conversation with the public on how to do that.”
When asked what he would say to people who were disappointed by the outcome, Maxwell responded, “Everyone had a chance to be heard, we ended early, we would have appreciated more independents here who were affected by it, because it was a lot of member of one political party or another, so we need to find a way to have a better conversation with independents who were affected by this who were ultimately disenfranchised.”
Frens submitted her resignation from the role of county solicitor last week. According to Chester County Communications Director Andrew Kreider, “the County is moving quickly to fill the Solicitor role, looking forward to a smooth transition when Colleen departs in April.”
You can read the full investigation report by Fleck, Eckert, & Klein, as well as the county’s responding action plan, on the Chester County website (chesco.org).