A ballot mistake turns a Daniel Boone School Board candidate's win into a loss

Nov. 22—Caroline Brown was ready to get to work.

The Union Township woman saw a need in her community, realizing that only one candidate was running for two open regional seats on the Daniel Boone School Board. She took it upon herself to do something about it by throwing her hat into the ring.

The Berks County Election Services Office listed two available two-year seats in the board's region two. Only Brown and incumbent Tanya Bell ended up filing the paperwork necessary to appear on the ballot, so both cruised through the May primary and the November general election.

Following Election Day, Brown decided to get a jump on her new position. She sent an email to Julia Olafson, president of the Daniel Boone School Board, letting her know that she was eager to assume her new post.

But the response she received was strange.

"I got an email from her telling me what the results of the election were and I'm thinking, 'Why is she sending me this?'" she said. "It didn't make any sense."

She was soon told what Olafson already knew.

Brown received a call from the Berks County Board of Elections informing her that a mistake had been made. It turns out the ballot in the primary and general elections had incorrectly stated there were two open seats in the race she had entered.

There was, in fact, only one.

And since Brown had finished in second place — nearly 440 votes behind Bell — she would not be serving on the school board after all.

"I was shocked," she said. "I had done everything right. Somewhere I felt like I would have been told this is not right. I signed up mostly because the position was going to go unfilled, so when that all transpired, I have to admit that I was like, 'Whoa, what happened there?'"

Brown told her story at an elections board meeting Friday where the county commissioners certified the final tally of official votes. She didn't go there looking to challenge the result of her race, but rather to simply get some answers about what, exactly, happened.

"I'm not really here to debate who got more votes — I get that," she said. "What I'm here for is to try to understand how this could have happened. It's a big deal. I guess I'm trying to figure out where everything started to go wrong because I did all the steps to get on the ballot."

Cody Kauffman, first assistant solicitor for the county, said he believes the mistake was made when the county received a letter from the Daniel Boone School District informing election officials of the positions that needed to be included on the ballot. He said the letter initially did not list any openings in region two.

"There are some hand notations on the letter, so I think the original confusion originated with that paperwork," he told Brown.

That may have been the case, however an official from the school board said the mistake should have been fixed following the primary. Olafson said at the meeting on Friday that she had alerted election officials to the problem before the November election.

"I just wanted to say that I'm the one that brought the issue to the board of elections," she said. "I brought it to your attention after the election. Unfortunately, I also brought it to your attention after the primary in May and it was not rectified. No blame. I just wanted to say that outright."

Olafson said her colleagues on the school board are aware of the situation and are willing to accept whatever remedy the board believes is fair.

Kauffman acknowledged Olafson had alerted the county of the situation following the primary, saying the mistake should have been addressed at that time. But it wasn't.

And then when the sample ballots were listed on the website for review the error should have been caught.

But, again, it wasn't.

"It appears that all parties could have been more discerning, but it was our ballot and we'll take responsibility for it and apologize for the error," Kauffman said.

Kauffman said that after he was alerted of the issue he reached out to Daniel Boone School District solicitor about how to handle the situation. Because there is only one open seat, he said they both agreed the board can only certify one winner for the race.

"We both agreed that, while it's unfortunate and we recognized that, we don't see any other way than to certify one winner because there is only one open seat," he said, recommending the commissioners certify Bell as the winner because she had secured almost twice as many votes as Brown.

Commissioners Chairman Christian Leinbach supported the recommendation.

"Based on the dramatic variation between these two candidates, voter intent seems to be significantly on the side of one versus the other," he said.

Leinbach also issued an apology to Brown.

"At the end of the day, it's our responsibility," he said. "We're the election board. If things go right, we give credit to our team. And when they go wrong, we take the responsibility. That's where it rests. Period. So, moving forward these things are being addressed."

Commissioner Michael Rivera said the whole issue was unfortunate.

"I understand that when you're running and something like this happens it's a shock," he said. "And we do apologize for that and we are working to try to avoid this again in the future."

The Daniel Boone ballot error was the latest is a series of mistakes made by election officials this election season.

It was discovered on Oct. 20 that the county had mailed out 17,000 ballots with Spanish-language instructions that incorrectly stated that the deadline to return mailed ballots to the county was Nov. 18 — 16 days after the actual date of Nov. 2.

And then, on Oct. 28, the county sent a letter to 800 poll workers informing them that they were appointed to serve in various positions on Election Day. The letter twice referred to the date of the election as Nov. 3, 2020.