Court Tosses Bid To Remove Delco Board From Overseeing Election

DELAWARE COUNTY, PA — The Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Monday threw out a lawsuit seeking to remove the county's Board of elections from overseeing Tuesday's election.

The suit was filed by Delaware County Council candidates Frank Agovino and Joseph Lombardo, both Republicans, over mail-in ballots that were being provided by an Ohio-based third-party vendor.

They alleged voters reported irregularities in the mail-in ballots, amounting to about 45,000 mail-in ballot errors, and said the "validity of the municipal election ... is in jeopardy."

Ultimately, Judge Kelly Eckel rejected the suit on grounds of the election board appropriately exercising its authority under the Election Code to correct the alleged mistakes and omissions.

Delaware County Solicitor Bill Martin called the lawsuit unfortunate and said it wasted county resources.

"It was unfortunate that Delaware County Republicans expended significant County resources, and distracted staff from preparing for the election, with this unneeded 'emergency' weekend legal process," he said. "It is of a recent pattern where the party seeks to drive elections into the courts, instead of seeking to fairly compete at the ballot box."

Issues brought up in the suit included misprinted mail-in ballots, incorrect return envelopes included with the ballots, and failure to deliver mail-in ballots.

Eckel said in her ruling the board addressed these issues.

Also included in the suit was an issue with poll watchers, which each party is permitted to have oversee vote tallying.

Agovino and Lombardo sought to have the court take on the role of watchers, but Eckel affirmed the existing structure of Democratic and Republican watchers overseeing counts, calling judicial watchers unnecessary due to other security measures already in place.

"As anticipated by the County, Judge Eckel confirmed that the petition filed by the Republican candidates was moot, as the matters complained of had been appropriately remedied by the County Board of Elections," Martin said. "The judge confirmed the role of 'watchers' to monitor the count of ballots the County had already agreed to sequester. Finally, the judge extended to 8:00 PM on November 5, 2021, the period where the County can tabulate ballots, only as the deadline relates to the small number of ballots that had been re-mailed, or mailed late, as long as the ballots are postmarked on or before Election Day. As to the petitioners’ proposal to take the election out of control of the Board of Elections, and rest such control in the courts, the judge recognized such request as unneeded, since the County was already following the law."