Voting extended until 10 p.m. in Chester County, Pennsylvania after third-party voters initially left off poll books
CHESTER COUNTY, Pa. (WPVI) — A judge extended polling hours in Chester County, Pennsylvania on Tuesday over an issue that impacted independent and third-party voters earlier in the day.
Those voters were mistakenly not listed on the poll books at polling locations. Officials spent the day getting corrected poll books distributed throughout the county.
Supplemental poll books have been delivered to all 230 precincts, the county said.
The issue meant some voters in Chester County walked away Tuesday feeling uncertain about their ballot, or not having voted at all.
“I will be following up to see that it counted,” Charlestown Township voter Maria Amado said.
“Will my vote be counted? I was given a number and I will check,” Schuylkill Township voter Rolph Gerstenberger said.
While the correct poll books were being distributed, independent and third-party voters were able to cast provisional ballots.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, but in this day and age, 2025, this should not happen,” Charlestown Twp. voter Elis Hamzallari said.
“The bottom line is if they don’t can the people who made this screw up, I’m voting out their bosses,” Charlestown Twp. voter Gregory Turnbull said.
Chester County CEO David Byerman south to reassure voters, telling Action News, “Whether a vote is counted in the traditional process or through the provisional process, those votes count equally.”
As for how this happened?
“I understand that it was the use of the primary roll book instead of the election [day] which is the reason why the independents or the non-affiliates aren’t included,” Chester County Democratic Committee Chair Charlotte Valyo said.
“It’s certainly a reasonable theory. We have not started our investigation as to how this happened yet. That’s a question for tomorrow. The question for today is, how do we fix this problem?” Byerman said.
The chairs of both the Republican and Democratic party committees agreed on one thing:
“Obviously very disturbing news, it’s outrageous actually,” Chester County Republican Committee Chair Raffe Terzian said.
“It’s concerning and troubling and disappointing,” Valyo said.
But they disagreed on whether the issue is a symptom of a larger problem.
“This is just more evidence of mismanagement and dysfunction county-wide that we’ve been talking about,” Terzian said.
I’m afraid it might be used to erode trust. I don’t think it should, I think it’s a mistake that is explainable, it wasn’t any conspiracy theory or anything done deliberately,” Valyo said.
“I’m sure whoever made this mistake, it was an honest mistake, and we’re going to, you know, fix the problem and learn from those mistakes and move on to the next election,” Byerman said. “But you can bet that in the coming days and weeks, we’ll be doing a complete investigation to make sure exactly how this happened, whether it was a state issue or a county issue. At this point, we’re just not prepared to say.”
You can track your provisional ballot online here.
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