Board of Elections - Regular Meeting

meeting of the Montgomery County Election Board, seeing a quorum with Commissioner Winder and I. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, Commissioner. Joe Rooney wanted to move us.

Thank you, Mr. Spanish. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Amen. Thanks. All right, so we have two items on the agenda today, which are precursors to the primary election, which is an update from Frank Dean on the primary election preparations and how everything's going. We have the appointment of the Canvas board and the appointment of the temporary poll workers. That's it, right? Great. Any comments? Okay, we'll move on to general public comment.

First up, Liz Berry.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Liz Berry, and I'm here representing the Lincoln Montgomery County Republican Committee. And I wanted to point out that last week, Commissioner Neal McEacher used taxpayer dollars to send out a text to voters in Montgomery County to host a campaign call with Senator Art Haywood, who is running for reelection. It is totally unacceptable for the county to be hosting campaign events using taxpayer dollars. The commissioner should reimburse taxpayers for this expense and the county should prohibit this type of dishonest activity in the future. The Montgomery County Republican committee has filed an ethics violation with the state ethics commission regarding the commissioner's actions. I'd like to know the solicitor's response to this. So no one with a straight face can say that this is anything but a thinly disguised campaign event. And it's our sincere hope that nothing like this happens in the future. I also had a question regarding upper Dublin township, which is my understanding that over 160 incorrect mail-in ballots were sent toward two. And that individuals were then sent new ballots. And I'm curious, do we know what happened to the original balance that we're sending? Thank you.

Let's come in.

Joe Rooney.

Good afternoon now. Quick questions before. I signed up for general comment and also for agenda items. Are they both right now?

One, yeah, one item.

Is it three minutes for both? Three minutes for both. yeah okay so um the specific item to the agenda is in rockledge last election cycle a republican won as a judge of elections and that person couldn't perform this time i didn't find out about it until a couple days ago when my rockledge committee people and some elected officials asked me so The Republican who is going to be the judge of elections is unable to work on Tuesday. But we were never contacted to come up with a replacement. And a Democrat was appointed instead of that. So Republicans won that seat. And I'm not an election lawyer like as you are. But it seems to me in a primary, if a Republican wins the primary, then a Republican Party is notified if that person can't. move into the general election I believe we should have been notified about that open judge of election temporarily open judge of election position and that's uh I haven't replaced it but I just wanted to I brought it up to Mr Dean when I found about it I think Friday or something like that and over the weekend I tried to figure it out so I don't think it's appropriate to replace an elected Republican with an appointed Democrat in a judge of election position The second one is I would like to follow up on Chairman Ferry's position. That was brought up at the last meeting. There was something mentioned, but there wasn't enough time to comment on it. So I looked up the ethical conduct and rules of the Senate. And I believe there's two places in here where Art Haywood violates these ethical rules along with our county because they use taxpayer-funded money to do a demo event. And I'd just like to point out the hilarity of this is I'm a Republican in Abington Township. Art Haywood as a Democrat primary challenger and our Democrat commissioners are promoting Art Haywood on a taxpayer dollars. And I'm trying to help out the Democrat challenger. So there should be other Democrats in here that are that are complaining equally about that. But nonetheless, I think it's unethical. And I'll give you just a little example. I'm an airline pilot. There's a little box we're always briefed from the first day you start flying. They said, this is the safety box. You stay inside that box, and the guys in charge, whether it's my commanding officer or whether it's the guys at Delta Airlines, they will defend you to the end. Say, hey, this guy followed all the rules, and the tire blew. He went off the runway, whatever the case may be. They said, you will go outside of the box, and we're not. That's it. You're on your own. You've made a bad decision, and you knew what the rules are. The chairman of this panel right here is an election lawyer. Art Haywood is a lawyer. I'd like to know when we're dealing with public taxpayers' money, why can't we stay safely inside that ethical box and avoid even the implication of impropriety? Everybody can look at that and say, Art Haywood's getting promoted just before the primary because he's a primary challenger. Say, hey, you know what? We're not going to go there. After the election is a different matter. You would not want me flying your family around if I was operating on the edge of the safety box. And we like our elected officials to stay safely inside this ethical box. Thank you.

Okay, next up on Zoom, Adrian Scheltzer. Adrian, can you hear us?

Yes, here I am. Go ahead. Can you hear me? Hi. Hi. My name is Adrienne Seltzer. I'm a judge of elections in Lower Merion 8-2. I have been working the polls for longer than I think a couple of you are alive. And I'm pretty familiar with how elections work and want to comment on how helpful voter services has been and how important it is for the commissioners to to tell people about voting because there's so many that have no clue and um i i'm not speaking as a member of any of the organizations that i belong to but i know we have done um voting rights, voting information, where we've had an incumbent come and speak. And when they come and speak, they're not telling you, oh, I did this, I did that. They're not there to promote themselves. They're there to inform the public. And I think that the gentleman speaking about the Republican judge of elections When you're a judge of elections, I'm in my third term now, you are completely nonpartisan. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. You are, that is what you do. You are nonpartisan and to complain about somebody being a Democrat or Republican just doesn't make sense unless your judge of elections that you had there was partisan. And I doubt that they were if they were a judge of elections. Um, I really want to compliment Frank Dean for the training on the new electronic poll books. I want to, um, to compliment them on just how easy it is to get our, to get our judges boxes. Robert is amazing. He's been amazing for many years. And just your whole office runs so well. And I thank you for making elections possible. And I thank the commissioners for trying to help people understand that there actually is an election, a primary. You can't believe how many people don't even know that there's an election happening Tuesday. So I thank you for your outreach. And I guess that's it. Thank you, guys.

Okay, we'll move on to approval of the minutes. Is there a motion to approve the April 23rd, 2026 minutes of the Montgomery County Election Board? So moved by Commissioner Winder. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner DiBello. Any board comment? All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. The minutes are approved. And next, we'll have Frank Dean present on the upcoming primary.

Good afternoon, election board. Section 2675 of the election code permits the board of elections to temporarily appoint qualified individuals to fill any vacancies occurring at any time by the day preceding an election. There's a list attached to your agenda entitled poll worker appointments for the 2026 primary election. We are requesting that the board move to approve the individuals on this list to serve in the named election districts in the named positions for the 2026 primary election and for that election.

Great. Any questions? many poll workers are there so 2532 and 190 student poll workers questions okay is there a motion to their motion the people whose names are set forth on the attached document titled poll worker appointments for the 2026 primary election as non-elected poll workers are designated to serve as members of the various local boards of elections throughout Montgomery County for the date of the 2026 municipal election only. So moved. Moved by Commissioner DiBello. Is there a second?

I'll second that.

Seconded by Commissioner Winder. Any board comment? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Board approved. Moving on to section three.

Section 3146.8 of the Election Code states that the Board of Elections is to conduct the pre-canvas and canvass of votes cast via mail-in and absentee ballots. Section 3050 of the Election Code states that in the days following the election, the Board of Elections shall examine provisional ballot envelopes to determine if the individual voting the provisional ballot is entitled to have that ballot counted. The Code gives the Board the authority to delegate their responsibilities to representatives authorized to act on the Board's behalf. You have been provided a document called canvas or appointments for the 2026 primary election. I'm requesting the board vote to approve the people named on that list to serve as the canvas canvas board and on the absentee mail in canvas board for the 2026 primary election for the purpose of examining and making determinations as to what provisional absentee and mail in ballots may be counted. Any questions.

is there a motion to appoint the names set forth in the attached document titled canvasser appointments for the 2026 primary election to work as members of the mail-in and absentee ballot canvas board to assist in the computation of the primary election held on may 19 2026. so moved moved by commissioner winder is there a second second and by commissioner develop any point comment all in favor aye aye uh motion was approved appointments um Do you want to say about tomorrow?

I hope everyone gets out and gets out and vote in early. I have a very smooth experience. If they do have any issues, we will have the phone staffed from 5 a.m. onwards until the last ballots are back in our possession. We're excited and we have Montgomery County's too.

Do you have the numbers on how many people voted already?

We have issued 79,000 mail-in ballots, and we have received 54,800 back as of this morning, which is about a 70% return rate. I didn't see the reports of the Dropbox usage. I have one that's waiting for today's numbers, and you will have that by the end of the day. How are the ballots spoiled for the ones that went out for Dublin? We can track them based on their barcode. So any that we've received back have already been sequestered, and any that we continue to receive back will be sequestered. Those ballots will never be opened, never scanned. All of the voters who received an incorrect ballot have already been issued new ballots, and they were also called. A letter was mailed to their house, and we sent them an email. So what do you do with the envelopes? They will get stored for two years. Segregated off? They literally never get opened. They'll literally never get opened. Where are they stored for two years? In a separate archive box. So that archive box is more spoiled ballots? It'll probably be labeled something along the lines of Upper Dublin 2-1 sequestered ballots.

So if somebody files a right to know, they'll be able to see that yes you got anything no okay any closing comments uh just two quick ones one is uh same i have a question regarding same thing if we had a i'm not getting party specific but if a party one the JOE's position, and then there's an opening that JOE that won and isn't able to work in that election. How does that, don't we typically reach out to?

Our typical process is we reach out to the majority inspector first and offer them the job. In this case, that person declined. We reached out to the minority and they accepted. Had the minority not accepted, We would have then reached out to the parties and asked for them to suggest a candidate to replace the position. That's our policy when the person is only going to be temporarily available. If a position had been fully vacated, then we would have just handed that over to the parties.

So then who's filling the minority inspector position?

One of the clerks, I believe, is stepping up and being appointed.

But so based on that, is the majority inspector the opposite party of the clerk?

The majority inspector is a registered. Yes, it's opposite party.

Yes. Right. Because we want to make sure that there's one and one where best we can as far as inspector position. So that's why I'm asking that.

Well, with the inspectors, it's not. It's whoever received the most and second most. It's not necessarily opposite parties. You can have a majority and minority be of the same party in the same place.

No, not if somebody ran. Because each party runs somewhere. Each party runs in the spectrum.

So you should have one and one.

If someone ran from that party. Right. If nobody ran, that's a different story. But if someone won a write-in for that position, they could be of the same. Right. So, yes, it's not as cut and dry as every polling place has opposite party representation with the inspectors. We try to keep some kind of parity. Right.

That's what I'm asking.

Yes. Try to keep parity. We do. And again, in this instance, this is coverage for this election only. The elected Joe has indicated that they will be serving in November, so they will return to their position. The minority will return to his position.

Right. And so the J.O.E. But if that J.O.E. then says that they're not available to do it, then the party... notified if they are fully vacating yes right yes does that answer your question i understand it well i'm not we may not agree with it i'm just trying to get the information the way it's done thank you yeah and as far as the other situation i on how um I'm not going to comment on the legalities of it since it's been turned over to the ethics board um so I'm going to be careful what I say but um it did bring up a really good point as far as that um if it was legal or not legal I'll let that be figured out but from a county perspective it just gives a bad perception a bad um that one senator was asked to participate in a town hall event that had a primary opponent. It just didn't have a good look from a county perspective. So I think that moving forward that we need to do a better job or be careful if we're going to have guests participate in town halls, we are careful with the reception that we provide out there. uh whatever our intentions are or aren't it just gives a bad impression uh as far as from a county perspective the way that came down um i'll be curious to see because i didn't agree with it um but i'll be curious to see what the ethics commission comes back with and obviously based on what they come back with we'll have to deal with that at that point in time but moving forward i highly suggest we just be careful John Potter, If we're going to have people participate. John Potter, In town halls as if Commissioners aren't able to participate and we're going to ask others to we should be careful in the perceptions that we give. John Potter, To the Community because. I'm not sure the robocall that went out, how specific that was of who actually got the robocall, who didn't get the robocall, because there was a lot of people that reached out to me and said, well, they didn't get notified of that town hall. And it just happened to be more party-specific than not. I don't know if that's true or not, but... it's, you know, something, again, we need to be careful if we're going to put out robo calls, who's getting those calls and where, you know, so that's all.

So, My comment would be that if there's a member of this board that has any concerns about the conduct of the staff or the employees, that they raise that with the solicitor instead of through a partisan press release. Because if we're serious about ethics, we have a governing responsibility and we have a fantastic team, a legal team that heavily scrutinizes all the work that we do here. And there are going to be partisan actors who want to attack work in the election space as they do every year. And we've done a great job. Frank, you've done a great job. Our team as a whole has done a great job making sure that all voters receive the information they need to exercise their fundamental right to vote, whether they're Republicans, Democrats, or independents. And town halls have been a part of that they've been non-partisan they've included every member of this board they've been conducted in a way that reaches out to republicans independents and democrats alike and so there are always going to be people who want to cast out on our election process but we're going to continue to do the good work of reaching out to our voters and making sure that everyone in montgomery county is aware of the process and the procedures. Excuse me, you're out of order.

You're out of order. You're in the wrong here and you should apologize.

I appreciate that you're here. And if you had won the election, you would be sitting up here. You're going to have to wait for public comment. You're going to have to wait for public comment. That's inappropriate. What's inappropriate is to have a commissioner working with his party chair to cast doubt on the good work of the county. So if you're going to continue to do that and act like Commissioner Joe Gale, then you're... You want to do this?

Do you really want to do this in public? Because I'll take you on right now. You want to do this? Do you want to do this? Because you knew exactly what you were doing with this whole town hall. You knew that you were promoting Art Firewood. That was your goal. That was your plan. Because he has opposition. That's what you were attempting to do. You're out of order. I'm not out of order. I can speak up whenever I want to sitting at this table.

So I think we need to take the temperature down. Everybody has a right to give their point of view. I was out last week because my father passed away. But I wanted to be here today. um to support my colleague and also um reiterate the fact if if any i you know you took the words out of my mouth if anyone on this board has an issue right there is a a way to go about addressing it and i just don't believe a press release, like, we work through a lot of difficult stuff as a board. And I recognize that we have our party affiliations. But what I saw last week certainly undermines the good work that our team is doing. And I can attest that there was no goal to promote Art Haywood. These town halls, I know I was on one, Commissioner DiBello was on one. It's the same. it's the same format that we've had in past town halls. So I would just say that if we have issues as a board, right, there is a path for us to address those issues because it erodes trust between us as a board. And we've done a fairly nice job of working together across party lines. And I just, like ethics violations calling people unethical i mean that's just a step too too far for me we can have our differing opinions but everyone on this board is trying to to do the right thing by the office that they've been elected for and so i won't sit here um and accuse one of my colleagues of doing doing otherwise

I'll just... Ben, if you want to add anything from your... No, I mean, from the solicitor's office perspective, this was a town hall to provide information to the public. And beyond that, I don't have further comments on what's been discussed today.

All right. With that, is there a motion to adjourn the May 18th, 2026 meeting of the Montgomery County Election Board? So move. Seconded by Commissioner Bellow. Anybody comment? All in favor? Aye.