The one government official that I have the most admiration, as well as the most sympathy for, is Lycoming County Director of Voter Services Forrest Lehman. Listening to Forrest is like sitting in a college classroom and hearing a brilliant professor explain a complex system in such clear terms that even a freshman would be able to grasp it. Forrest never talks down to the audience as he navigates through the complexities and challenges that his department must deal with in every single election. And this is not just the opinion of this observer alone, for Forrest Lehman is known and respected statewide for his clarity and breadth of knowledge of the electoral system in Pennsylvania.

He was attending the Lycoming County Commissioners Meeting on Thursday, August 11th, for two agenda items. One was to vote to approve Resolution 2022-15 regarding federal election records from the 2020 election to the end of 2023. The second item was for the county to apply for reimbursement funding under the new Act 88 of 2022 law which offers annual grant funding for counties in implementing nine discrete categories of election processes.

The backstory to these initiatives is, of course, the veracity of our annual elections in the Commonwealth. Though these are certainly well intended, they present yet more headaches for an already overworked Department of Voter Services in our county. For example, there is the issue of “pre-canvassing.” Forrest Lehman highlighted this at the meeting. According to the Pennsylvania Election Code, “the word ‘pre-canvass’ shall mean the inspection and opening of all envelopes containing official absentee ballots or mail-in ballots, the removal of such ballots from the envelopes, and the counting, computing and tallying of the votes reflected on the ballots.”

Now, that sounds simple enough. Yet the Pennsylvania State Assembly in Act 77 of 2019 established that this pre-canvassing must be started at 7:00 AM on election day. The reasoning behind this was that some counties in our state were putting off counting these ballots even days after the election was over.

But this ‘one-size-fits-all’ for every county in the Commonwealth is unfair to the small population counties such as Lycoming County. Large population counties such as Philadelphia or Allegheny may indeed have hundreds of these ballots that should be counted promptly. Yet, Lycoming County may only have a handful that need to be counted, yet Forrest must assemble his people hours before it may be necessary because of an edict that came from on high by our state government.

The commissioners sympathized with Forrest and praised his dedication. They genuinely sympathize with what he and his department must go through. And they need to! Forrest has been tracking the turnover of his county peers, county directors of voter services departments in the 67 counties in Pennsylvania. Forrest noted that 38 counties have had to replace their director in the last three years. And even right now, there are three counties that are looking for new directors.

It is very, very hard to believe that there is any department of county government in Pennsylvania that has seen the fluidity of leadership as the Office of Voter Services. As Forrest has noted in the past, this is a job that a director must grow into. What was true yesterday might now necessarily be true tomorrow. Systems that have been set up and expected to work smoothly are suddenly thrown out because a new system must be put in place. Forrest Lehman noted that the exodus in this position through the state has amounted to 600 administration years of experience lost in the past 30 months. The impact of this may be felt for decades in our Commonwealth’s county governments.

The emphasis on voting integrity is well-founded as it is the essence of democracy. But the offenses in Maricopa County, Arizona, or Fulton County, Georgia, should not be pressed against those who follow the rules and produce honest election results. There will be a breaking point if our election officials are continually asked to do more and more, better and better, with the same or fewer resources. At the very least, dedicated servants like Forrest Lehman and his peers should not be treated like they have leprosy instead of the respect that they deserve.