It’s Not a Laughing Matter!
By Felice Fein, Keystone Fair Business Partners
A few months ago we highlighted concerns about Chester County’s growing budget and personnel issues, focusing on their Voter Services Department and Solicitor’s Office. As summer draws to a close and election season heats up, we decided to see if the Voter Services Department corrected their personnel problems prior to the November Municipal General Election. Based on the number of vacant positions and the problems stemming from the department, it sure doesn’t look like they are heading in the right direction. What does this mean for newly registered voters, mail-in ballot applications, voting machine maintenance, poll worker training, campaign finance reporting, and accuracy of the vote count?
Voter Services Department Functions & Impact
The Chester County Voter Services Department is responsible for managing all aspects of election processes from voter registration to reporting election results. Below are just a few of their duties:
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Voter Registration Application review and processing;
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Maintaining accurate voter rolls;
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Mail-in Ballot (MIB) Application review and processing;
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Campaign Finance filing review;
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Ballot creation;
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Voting machine maintenance, storage, and testing;
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MIB collection, review, and counting;
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Accumulating and reporting all votes and results for each election.
Without the right personnel training and the proper review of work, any one or more of those functions can be put at risk. For example:
ERROR
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Registration application input error:
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MIB application input error:
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Voter rolls not reviewed or maintained properly:
IMPACT
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Inability to vote regularly; must vote provisionally;
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Ballot may be delayed or lost;
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Electors’ votes may be diluted by potentially fraudulent voters
And, all THAT puts elections at risk!
Personnel Concerns
For such a critically important and technical department, one would think that there is cross-training on most functions and a desire for institutional knowledge to ensure no detail is missed. At the May 7, 2025 Chester County Commissioners Meeting (see the 20:13 mark), a county resident brought Voter Services personnel concerns to the attention of the Commissioners. At that time, it was noted that 27 staff members had either resigned, transferred, or been terminated in the four years since Director Karen Barsoum’s hiring in 2021. Since then, a mere three months later, the total number of staff who vacated the department in four years is now 31! This department, which is budgeted for 23 full-time staff members, lost ten (10) employees since January 2025! Voter Services is currently trying to fill six (6) vacancies within the department as seen below.
Of the current staff of four (4) managers, eleven (11) full-time employees, and two (2) part-time employees, there are only FOUR (4) people remaining in Voter Services who became employed in the department before Director Barsoum.
The institutional knowledge about election laws and procedures has been drained!
Recent Problems Looking for Solutions
Perhaps the most publicly seen issue is that of the Prothonotary election in November. Voter Services (and the Solicitor’s Office) failed to recognize that this position was to be on the 2025 ballot until a few weeks prior to the Primary Election. Although the political parties did not have the opportunity to place candidates on the primary ballot for that race, they will have candidates on the ballot in November. The winner will fill the Prothonotary role in January.
However, that’s not the only problem that has surfaced recently. We’ve heard of some primary voters being unable to vote for candidates in the party to which they thought they were registered. Campaign committees and PACs received violation notices claiming campaign finance filing errors and assessing fees when, in fact, there were no errors. Candidates and voters routinely receive inaccurate information when they call Voter Services with anything other than a basic question.
County Commissioners & the CXO
This month the Chester County Commissioners hired a Chief Experience Officer, or a CXO, with a salary of $164,000 per year plus benefits. Chester County is the first in the commonwealth to have that position in its county government. Additionally, there was a lot of criticism regarding the hiring of another member of the county administration due to the ballooning county budget, especially from Commissioner Eric Roe. We are told that Ms. Moser’s role will be to oversee the departments which directly interface with the public. So, naturally, Voter Services will fall under her purview. Will she see the same problems we do? Will she do anything about them?
Bottom line…
As Karen Barsoum makes her many public appearances and touts the efficiency and accuracy of Chester County elections, it seems her domain is crumbling from within. Is she tone deaf to the needs of her staff members? Has she compartmentalized so many functions that no one understands the big picture? What caused 150% turnover in four years? As any student of Human Resources would know, where there is smoke, there is fire, and most likely a management problem! Will this new CXO dig into the turnover and problems stemming from the Voter Services Department? Time will tell. Voters deserve secure elections and Chester County’s look to be at risk!
If you are concerned about the safety of the election process, consider volunteering as a poll watcher with your local party!
I’m sharing this piece by Felice Fein with Keystone Fair Business Partners to point out the obvious: Chester County’s Voter Services office is already overwhelmed. Pushing even more mail-in ballots into that broken system is foolish and dangerous. Enough is enough — the public should not accept failure dressed up as reform.