Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt officially certified the results of the general election in Pennsylvania last week, calling it “free, fair, safe and secure.” County elections directors WPSU interviewed said the election process was – all in all – well done.
“It really was smoother than I thought it was going to go,” Sarah Seymour said.
Seymour is the elections director for Blair County. In an year marred by accusations of fraud, persistent litigation and a statewide series of election night bomb threats, Seymour said she was “prepared for worse.”
Seymour said she maintained strong working relationships with both Democrats and Republicans and focused on clearing up misconceptions quickly as they arose.
“We knew what to expect from going through 2020, and we knew anything they threw at us from 2020, we got through,” Seymour said.
Elections Director Charlie Brown said she focused on “being transparent and communicating with voters" in Potter County.
“It was a great effort and an excellent turn out for a great election for us,” she said.
In Cameron County, the state’s least populous, Elections Director Annette Campbell said this year was “stressful” as vote scanner issues and an unfounded bomb threat complicated things on Election Day.
Next election, Campbell said her county will likely try a different vote tabulation method, but otherwise she said the process went well.
“It didn’t go as smooth as we wanted it to, but everything that we were challenged with, we were able to overcome,” Campbell said.
Pennsylvania’s electors will meet in Harrisburg next Tuesday to cast the state’s 19 electoral votes for the President-elect. That’s the final state process before Congress considers the election in January.
