Linda A. Kerns: Election ‘snafu’ causes Korean War vet to miss his first vote

Elections are not always exciting. Often, the weather is bad, the lines are long, and the wait is inconvenient. Sometimes, voters go to the polls to decide among flawed or uninspiring candidates in the hopes that they pick the one who will do the least amount of damage in their elected position. 

But that didn’t matter to Eugene Kopecki, a Korean War veteran who considered it his right, his privilege, and his duty as an American citizen to vote in every election, even when family health concerns prevented him from casting his ballot in person.

He had a sterling voting record, too. Until May 2025, that is, when the Lackawanna Department of Elections failed so miserably with absentee and mail-in ballots that Mr. Kopecki was prevented from casting his ballot for the first time – including during his time serving in the military overseas. 

In April 2025, nearly 550 registered voters living in Scranton received absentee or mail-in ballots for the May 20 Primary Election that were printed with candidates from the 2024 elections.

Lackawanna County Director of Elections and Voter Registration Elizabeth Hopkins revealed in media interviews that she was unaware of the incorrect printing until April 26, when voters who received the improper ballots began contacting her office. 

Hopkins’s admission reveals her office shockingly had no quality control protocols in place to proofread the documents before going to print or to check the printed materials once they were completed. 

We are talking about basic, commonsense measures that any small business or corporation would conduct to make sure they do not make fools out of themselves to customers or the public.

But more importantly, the election officials failed to take simple steps to ensure the accuracy of ballots as required under Pennsylvania Election Code.

Remarkably, after learning of their rather consequential mistake on April 26, Elections Director Elizabeth Hopkins and her employees were unable to pull it together and get the corrected ballots out to voters’ mailboxes in time for voters to participate in the May 20 Primary Election.

This series of completely avoidable catastrophes disenfranchised a patriotic American who served his country and faithfully participated in previous elections… until he became yet another victim of Pennsylvania election officials’ careless disregard for their sworn duty to ensure that “primaries and elections may be honestly, efficiently, and uniformly conducted.” [Pennsylvania Election Code 25 P.S. §2642 (c), (f) and (g)]

Pennsylvania voters have tried to be patient and not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, but here we are. Again.

It should not be hard for grown adults to ensure that ballots are printed for the correct year in which the election is taking place.

Furthermore, when the Department of Elections staff finally “became aware” of the problem as voters contacted their office about the wrong ballots, they did what can only be described as the bare minimum in notifying the public of the problem and providing a timely solution to correct the situation. 

There was no attempt at a large-scale public communication or effort to confirm all affected voters received a proper ballot. 

The only recourse offered was a “pinky promise” that new ballots would be delivered through the United States Postal Service to the voters who contacted the department.

At least in the case of Mr. Kopecki, that assurance was false: no corrected ballot arrived in the mail, denying him his right to vote.

Pennsylvanians deserve fair and honest elections in which they can have confidence that their vote was counted, that it was not canceled out by someone who should not have been allowed to vote, and that the government officials carrying out the elections can be trusted throughout the process, all basic tenets of election administration.

But Pennsylvania’s track record is abysmal. Lackawanna County election officials sent 2024 ballots for a 2025 election to voters in Scranton, and officials in Luzerne County apparently forgot to stock ballot paper for an entire Election Day in dozens of precincts in 2022. Chester County distributed pollbooks missing the names of independent and third-party voters in 2025, causing chaos. 

Apparently, Pennsylvania election officials have not suffered enough embarrassment or felt compelled to take appropriate corrective measures following various election disgraces in recent years.

Elizabeth Hopkins was the Lackawanna County Director of the Department of Elections during the 2025 Primary Election, and she remains in that position to this day.

Hopkins and her department staff must be held accountable for disenfranchising Pennsylvania voters. 

It keeps happening because it’s been allowed to happen, but the election malfeasance needs to stop.

That’s why Mr. Kopecki, with the support of the Center for Election Confidence, filed suit against Lackawanna County Board of Elections, the county Department of Elections, and Director Elizabeth Hopkins, to do what he has always done in service to our country — protect America’s freedom, including our sacred right to vote.

We are well past the time to make sure there are fully trained, capable, and trustworthy adults running Pennsylvania election offices in 2026.

Linda A. Kerns, a Philadelphia attorney, represents the plaintiff in Kopecki v. Lackawanna County. www.lindakernslaw.com.