Delco is considering consolidating voting precincts to save money. Here’s what to know.
Court hearings will begin next week as Delaware County considers consolidating 98 voting precincts. Officials say it’s a needed reform that will drastically reduce the cost to administer elections.
During May’s primary election, one Chester City precinct had just nine voters. About a five-minute walk away, its neighboring precinct did slightly better — 15 voters turned out.
Voters in the two Delaware County precincts just barely outnumbered the five poll workers at each site hired to usher them through the primary voting process. And combined the precincts averaged less than two voters per hour that day.
In future elections, county election officials want to combine those voters into the same precinct, and do the same for dozens of others.
“We had precincts this last election where the ballot boxes were light as a feather,” said Jim Allen, Delaware County’s elections director.
Court hearings will begin next week in 18 cases Delaware County’s Board of Elections filed to consolidate 98 precincts across the county. If each consolidation is approved, the county will have 48 fewer voting districts. Officials say it’s a long-needed reform that will drastically reduce the cost to administer elections in Delaware County, but the county is likely to face resistance from right-wing activists.
Why is Delaware County consolidating precincts?
Delaware County has 428 voting precincts. That amounts to roughly one precinct for every 953 voters. In nearby Montgomery County, which has a bigger population, there are 426 precincts, equating to one precinct for roughly every 1,445 voters.
Delaware County’s precincts, Allen said, are unevenly divided, meaning some precincts process several times more voters than precincts elsewhere in the county. The exceedingly small precincts, he said, are a vestige of a time when election officials could put polling places in residential garages.
Some of the existing precinct polling places are just a few blocks from each other and in some cases are different lines in the same building.
By consolidating the precincts, Allen predicted, Delaware County would save $100,000 each year, and more than half a million dollars when it is time to replace election equipment.
“Not consolidating with this many precincts would be malpractice,” Allen said.
Consolidating the precincts will mean less equipment and fewer poll workers needed, making the jobs of election officials and political parties easier.
Colleen Guiney, the chair of Delaware County’s Democratic Party, said she hopes the consolidation will make the process of recruiting poll workers year after year simpler for both parties.
“Overall it’s going to be simpler because the lines should be shorter, the staffing should be better,” Guiney said.
Is the consolidation controversial?
Like most election-related issues since the 2020 election, consolidation has created controversy.
When Allen first presented the proposal to the Delaware County Council in January, he faced pushback from right-wing activists who worried the consolidation was a move to eventually eliminate precincts altogether.
“What is wrong with a hardware store or a garage where Democrats and Republicans work together to tabulate the vote?” said Joy Schwartz, a former Republican County Council candidate who has made unfounded claims about election fraud.
“You folks want to move away from that, you want to centralize it all, you want to take it out of the hands of the people and put it into the hands of your election director and his workers.”
Allen called the pushback absurd, noting that it came from the same people who have raised unfounded claims of election fraud since 2020.
As he’s pursued consolidation, Allen said, he’s received support from party leaders who have long struggled to recruit enough poll workers to staff Delaware County’s numerous precincts.
“We’ve worked really hard to make sure that voting is smoother in the precincts and this is part of that plan,” he said.
How do the changes get approved?
Allen is hopeful that some consolidations may be approved by the time voters go to the polls for November’s local elections this year. The rest, he said, should be completed by next year’s midterm elections.
Last month, the county filed several cases in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas. Hearings in those cases begin next week and continue throughout the month. Residents in areas where consolidations are happening will have the opportunity to testify on the consolidations before a judge makes a ruling.
After that, Allen said, the proposed changes will go to the Pennsylvania Department of State for approval.