A recent Broad + Liberty article (which every citizen should read) shined a light on Delaware County’s handling of mail-in voting. Though it did not prove any direct evidence of voter fraud, it did find an opaque system that invites skepticism.

Skepticism is the last thing we need in a society that is already losing trust in every major institution, but it is the inevitable result of introducing a new, less secure system of voting and failing to sufficiently demonstrate that it works, that it is safe, or even that it is necessary.

Unfortunately, Act 77 (the state law that authorized mail-in voting) is vague in many areas and, at times, even contradictory to the state election code. The lack of clarity and consistency allows local officials to make up too many of their own rules, or even change the rules on the spur of the moment.

Paul Rumley, who has been working as an election observer at the off-site counting center in Chester City for several election cycles over the past two to three years says access to the building where votes are counted has not been ideal.

“The basic difference between now and when I started as an observer is that [the government has] continued to curtail our ability to observe to the point that in this year’s primary, we were not allowed to have our phones,” Rumley said in the editorial. “And it is gotten to the point where they place us — if we want to look at the bins where they’re storing the counted ballots — they put us in a little four by four enclosure, and all of the material that we want to see is stacked perpendicular to where we’re standing and we can’t see a damn thing.”

The article goes on to outline issues with dropbox chain of custody, envelope markings, and ballots sent through the USPS. In each case the County’s response was effectively “trust us.”

Elections at the county level have shifted from a straightforward, verifiable system of in-person voting to a complex and opaque operation. It has gone from a single day operation to one that spans more than a month. At multiple points during that month the possibility of tampering, or partisans angling for every procedural advantage, exists. 

Just last week, more evidence has come to light to show that the election process is shot through with partisanship. As Todd Shepherd reported, the Delco elections board out of nowhere decided to open three “voter service centers” where voters could register, request a mail ballot, complete the ballot, and submit their vote — all at the same time. So much for “voting by mail”. Where are these new offices? All in towns where Democrats hold a significant voter registration advantage, of course: Chester, Upper Darby, and Chester Heights. 

So, let’s get this straight. Three weeks before an historic national election, with Democratic candidates at the top of the ballot losing their advantage in the polls, in the most populous region in the nation’s most critical swing state, an emergency meeting was called by a Democratic controlled election board to open “voting centers” even though “mail” voting is down considerably, even though there has been zero discernible demand from residents, and even though the county has not once publicly considered opening once for any election since the nation was in the throes of a pandemic. 

Oh, and the vetting process for site selection was based upon what legal or ethical foundation? Partisan activists tried to claim these were needed in socio-economically distressed communities. I grew up very poor. So poor I used to stand in line for surplus rations handed out at the Upper Darby Township building once a week to supplement what my widowed mother was able to afford to feed us. But I never needed the Democratic Party’s help finding my polling place and casting my vote because we struggled. This is so disingenuous.

Further, when the Delaware County GOP’s General Counsel sent a request to the county’s Director of Elections Jim Allen that he open voting centers in similarly distressed communities with Republican registration edges, Allen declined their request because “there are only limited laptops provided to each jurisdiction by the [Pennsylvania] Department of State.” He continued in an email provided by the county GOP, “With only six laptops, we do not have the capacity to add more sites.”

This is the kind of stuff that should give any reasonable American citizen serious pause about who holds the reins of power here. 

The thumb on the scale was too much for the board’s one Republican member, John McBlain, who was recently described to the Philadelphia Inquirer by the County Councilwoman who oversees elections, Christine Reuther, as “someone who I’m gonna disagree with on a great many policy issues, but we both have the same factual understanding of how elections are conducted.” 

He announced he would resign in protest immediately after the vote to approve the taxpayer funded centers where voters (e.g., Democrats) vote by mail by casting your vote in person for weeks before the election is actually conducted in the commonwealth. C’mon Christine!

All this context leaves very little doubt that the Delaware County Government is using taxpayer dollars to increase Democratic turnout. Immediately after the emergency meeting where the centers were approved, an attorney for the Democratic Party approached Allen and, according to McBlain, the following conversation took place: “She [Cantor] came up to Mr. Allen and said to him that Colleen Guiney, the chairwoman of the [county] Democratic Party, had the list of volunteers to staff the voter services center ready. And I expressed shock”. 

Mr. Allen would have us believe that no discussions took place between county officials and Democratic Party officials. Believe that and I have a bridge to sell you.

Mr. Allen has allowed as to how other counties are doing this. He has a point: Montgomery County Democrats have proven to be even more innovative, inventing “mobile voting centers”, where taxpayer funded trucks drive indiscriminately around the county in search of wayward voters. Rest assured, you will be more likely to find them parked in Wawa parking lots in Lower Merion and Norristown than Souderton and East Greenville. 

Is there a pattern? Could Democratic operatives have found what they believe to be loopholes in the mail in ballot law? Is it cheating? If not, is it right? I’m suspicious that the unbridled thirst for power has driven the Democratic Party to some very undemocratic practices. State and federal lawmakers and law enforcement agencies should look into this blatant attempt to tilt the election using taxpayer dollars.

I’m sorry, but the message Democrats are sending is clear: trust is not enough. 

Consider for a moment who Delaware County voters are expected to trust. Delaware County was a forerunner of implementing the private, partisan election grants in 2020, better known as “ZuckBucks”, that have since been outlawed in the commonwealth; and when Delaware County implemented the grants, Councilwoman Reuther, when warned by the county solicitor that the grant-giver was more aligned historically with the left than the right, said that partisan bias was fine to ignore, “I will deal with the blow back.”

Or, if lawsuits in Delaware County will determine the presidential winner, the county’s handpicked outside attorney — who has billed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the County’s taxpayers — has a history of partisan campaign work for President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other high profile Democrats.

Additionally, the county in its desire to have the best possible person overseeing Delco’s voting did a national search. Their search led them to Chicago — where better to find someone we can trust — and Jim Allen, who served as Director of Communications and Strategic Planning for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. We’re being asked to trust a former mouthpiece from the city that is most notorious for shady elections? 

Maybe things have changed since the heyday of the Daley machine, but it hardly is an origin story that inspires confidence. Apparently no one Delaware County was qualified to earn $150,000 per year – a number 191 percent higher than the median salary in Delaware County – to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the vote. 

Despite the deck being stacked in the Democrats’ favor in the County, there would still be no reason to mistrust elections there if the the shift to Democratic control did not also coincide with the introduction of a novel and untested system of voting: the mail-in ballot.

We, as a country, have spent more than a century perfecting the secrecy, security, and accessibility of traditional in-person voting, with reasonable exceptions. It works. Everyone knows it works, and there are systems in place to make sure that it does. But those systems are physical, and once the ballot is removed from those conditions, anything can happen. Mail-in voters could be coerced by someone in their households, or even have their ballots filled out by another person. 

Ballot harvesting, which we have already seen require a new election in a North Carolina congressional race, is another threat. And the post office’s inability to deliver a simple letter these days does not add confidence in the new system. But if you drop your ballot off at the voting center in your (Democratic) neighborhood? There’s no doubt that one gets counted.

A new system with new bosses who just demand we trust them: it doesn’t fill the average voter with confidence. If Delco’s election bosses want us to trust mail-in voting, they need to build that trust from scratch — with transparency and openness. 

Please, Delaware County Council, open up the process and let us have an election we can believe in. Let observers have access to the entire process, which the law clearly allows. Why would you do otherwise?

Wally Nunn is the former Chairman of Delaware County Council.