Some 75,000 registered voters walking into polling places in Chester County, Pennsylvania will not find their name in the polling book.
The names of registered Republicans and Democrats appear, but the independent and unaffiliated voters did not make the book. It means they all must cast provisional ballots for now. The county is working on the problem.
Chester County Voter Services posted on its website a bold, red-letter message at the top of its website, “We are working to get supplemental poll books to every polling place. Until that time, any registered voter who is not listed in the pollbook can vote provisionally.”
But if the county ends up using two poll books at all its polling places, one it started the morning with and the other that includes the missing voters, it is going to be tough to reconcile the number of voters to ballots cast at the end of the day.
Pennsylvania asks voters to show identification only the first time they vote at a new polling place. Voters then sign a poll book. The next time they vote, no ID is needed. Instead, voters sign next to last year’s signature, which poll workers find in the poll book. In this case, they do not appear in the poll books at all.
It is unclear how it happened. One theory is that the county election workers may have used a primacy poll book for the general election.
In Pennsylvania, just registered Republicans and Democrats vote in the primary election, and only for members of their own party. Independent and unaffiliated voters vote in the general election. This is a general election so their names should appear in the poll books.
Without the unpredictable unaffiliated and independent voters, Chester County leans blue, with 158,475 registered Democrats and 152,085 registered Republicans. Democrats have 6,363 more registered voters. The county has 385,575 total registered voters and of those, 75,015 are members of a smaller party or not affiliated with any party, according to Nov. 3, Pennsylvania Department of State data.
In addition to a statewide retention votes for three state Supreme Court justices, and one for Superior Court and the Commonwealth Court, Chester County voters are casting votes for a local county coroner, school board, and other local races.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
