NORRISTOWN >> After a chaotic month surrounding the general election, the Montgomery County Board of Elections announced that it will review its systems and practices.
“This will involve surveys, interviews and group discussions of current processes, challenges from this year and suggestions for improvements both internally and with external partners and experts,” said Commissioners’ Chairwoman Val Arkoosh.
The board certified its tally of the election results Tuesday after it was delayed by a failed bid to recount votes by the Jill Stein campaign. The petitions filed by the campaign and voters in the county argued that hacking could be a concern with Pennsylvania’s voting machines.
“I remain confident that the integrity of the machines and systems we use but I would like to also see the systems that connect to the machines further evaluated and I will ask the after action team to make recommendations on what those evaluations should entail,” Arkoosh said.
The county’s Voter Services department also struggled in the weeks leading up to election with absentee ballots, eventually needing to petition the courts for an extension to receive returned ballots.
“Regarding the absentee ballots I understand the frustration. That is why we sought to expand hours and extend deadlines. We were squarely focused on getting people the opportunity to vote through absentee ballot,” Arkoosh said. “I believe the extension was successful with more than 2,000 additional ballots coming in after the extended deadline.”
The total number of ballots that came in during the window of the extended deadline was 2,430 – all voters who would have been disenfranchised had the deadline not been changed. Another 288 absentee ballots came in after the extended deadline, according to numbers provided by the county.
The rate of return was lower than in previous years, with a total of 22,297 returned out of the 30,107 that were requested by voters.
“There are a myriad possible explanations why that might be, but I believe we need to look into the question more closely and I am directing our staff to conduct an after action review of our systems and procedures,” Arkoosh said.
The review will be led by Thomas Piatek, assistant director of intelligence for the Montgomery County Department of Public Safety, and Heather Morgan, training and exercise coordinator for the department. Arkoosh said they have advised the team to be thorough.
“We hope to begin the after action review this month and issue a report in early 2017 with specific recommendations for our procedures and some recommendations for the state systems,” she said.
