From the Editors: Competence builds trust. Incompetence destroys it.

The embarrassing malfunction of Chester County’s voter services department yesterday was a black eye for a state that already struggles to conduct elections with even the basic speed and competency of many others in the nation. Coming as it does after a different and unrelated foul-up in the primary election in the same county, it raises serious questions over whether anyone in West Chester is capable of doing the job.

Election snafus are a failure of the supremely important process of electing our government. It’s one of the most basic tasks of a republic system, and one that we used to be able to accomplish year after year without issue.

But these mistakes — failures, really — accumulate and, in doing so, erode the already fragile trust citizens have in our electoral system. People need to know that when they go to their polling place, they will be able to cast their ballots and that those ballots will be counted quickly and accurately. 

For about a century, we built that trust by running elections the right way across Pennsylvania. But in the past five years, massive changes to the manner in which we vote have raised serious concerns about the security of the ballot. And now these repeated failures in Chester County (and elsewhere) raise even more well-grounded concerns about whether the votes can even be counted correctly.

Competence builds trust. Incompetence destroys it.

More than ideological rigor, what most voters want out of their local government is competence. In Chester County, they’re not getting it. Most people scoff at the idea that the 2020 election was “stolen” in this or any other state. And they should. But each time the state messes up something so basic as this process of voting, it adds fuel to the conspiratorial mind. Even beyond not trusting the government to do its job, people start to believe something more nefarious is at work.

We have no reason to believe that there is such a conspiracy at work here. We would follow Hanlon’s razor and never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. But each time this kind of failure happens, fewer people will give their government the benefit of the doubt.

The people are owed an investigation and the people responsible must face consequences. By this we do not mean the mealy-mouthed mumbling of “I accept responsibility” and then returning to business as usual. We mean actual consequences for the people in power, as befits a republic.

After a statewide election administration failure by Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar in 2021 caused a popular proposed amendment to the state constitution to be left off the ballot (and consequently to fail), Boockvar resigned her office. It didn’t fix the problem, but it did show that failure would be punished and that incompetence would not be tolerated.

Chester County should make sure that the consequences are equally severe in this case.

But will they? The Democratic machine running that county has tolerated a high level of incompetence and malfeasance by its officeholders in the four short years since they won a majority of the county commission. The prothonotary, Debbie Bookman, resigned and was charged with theft — and the voter services department’s mistakes meant the primary voters couldn’t even choose who would appear on the ballot to replace her. The county treasurer, Patricia Maisano, has been credibly accused of fraud and deceit but has not only remained in office, but has been nominated for reelection by that same county Democratic Party. 

When people lie, cheat, and steal without comeuppance, it degrades the system and makes it harder for people to believe that other “mistakes” are not part of the same pattern of fraud and self-dealing.

Chester County has tarnished its reputation for competence and honesty in the past few years. They should start — today — to restore it.