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Public and commissioners press Northampton County on May primary errors; registrar outlines fixes
Summary
Voters and commission members told the Northampton County Election Commission that misdistributed mail‑in lists, poll‑book uploads and ballot‑machine jams undermined confidence in the May 19 primary; Elections Director Chris Comini described corrective steps, audit results and planned equipment upgrades.
Public commenters and several commission members pressed the Northampton County Election Commission on operational failures during the May 19 primary, raising concerns about mail‑in ballot lists, poll‑book uploads and voting‑machine jams.
Tom Pritchett, a judge of elections in Easton, told the commission "there's a lot of misinformation out now about the elections, the integrity of the elections" and urged a county information campaign, including videos explaining how machines and e‑poll books are handled. Multiple poll workers and inspectors described late or confusing notifications, missing entries on mail‑in lists and voters routed to incorrect polling places.
Matt Flower, who said the county has had "years of proven election administration failures," asked the commission to "identify the causes of these failures, explain the corrective actions being taken, establish measurable performance standards, and to provide regular public updates before any future elections." Other public commenters described specific incidents: a polling‑place list with 407 mail‑in entries that left nearly half of those names still showing as eligible to vote in person; machine jams blamed in part on heat and humidity; and maps or signs that left voters unable to find polling locations.
Elections Director Chris Comini responded with a statistical account and a timeline of remediation. He said Northampton County has 231,212 registered voters and reported 46,714 ballots cast in the primary (25,150 in person and 21,438 by mail). "The audit was completed successfully with no discrepancies identified," Comini said of the post‑election 2% audit required under Act 88. He acknowledged isolated operational incidents — machine jams, a location briefly losing both machines, and e‑poll book display issues — and described corrective measures: on‑site fixes, deployment of replacement machines, runners to deliver updated poll‑book files, a vendor update to e‑poll books, and enhanced post‑election verification procedures.
Comini said the most serious single problem stemmed from uploading the wrong Department of State file into the e‑poll books; that human error required manual delivery and verification at polling places. He told the commission the office will expand logic‑and‑accuracy testing and secure new, 11th‑generation e‑poll books, and is pursuing a mail‑ballot sorting machine with grant funding and county approval.
Commissioners pressed for further remedies: several proposed an "after‑action" review with judges of elections to catalog what worked and what did not; others asked the solicitor and staff to draft a letter to county administration demanding better communication, fuller distribution of training materials and accessible online posting of policy and handbooks. The solicitor said some redistricting boundary adjustments may be necessary to comply with Department of State rules and that any resulting changes would affect only "several dozen" voters, not wholesale district redraws.
What happens next: the commission agreed to pursue an internal letter to the administration, consider an after‑action review with judges of elections, and to track implementation of equipment upgrades and revised testing and verification procedures.
