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WEST CHESTER — Numbers. The story of an election always comes down, in so many ways, to the numbers.
To wit: The number of registered voters, in this case in Chester County, where the polls will open on Tuesday, Nov. 7, for the 2023 municipal election. And that would be 376,884.
Or the number of polling places (230) in the county’s municipalities (73) and the hours that they are open (7 a.m. to 8 p.m.)
And the breakdown in voter registration by parties (nine, by estimate, including Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, Socialists, and Working Families.) Plus, the number of mail-in ballots sent out by the county Office of Voter Services (53,840) versus the number returned as of Friday, three days after the deadline for applying for one (33,319.)
Or the number of municipalities whose voters are mostly Republican (44) versus those that are mostly Democrat (29, up two from 2022) and the count of which the county’s 10 most populated municipalities are “blue” (seven, including Coatesville, Phoenixville, Tredyffrin, Upper Uwchlan, Uwchlan, West Chester, and West Whiteland) rather than “red” (East Goshen, West Bradford and West Goshen.)
Then again, the number of offices on the ballot (13, give or take, depending on the municipality) and the number of candidates on the ballot (43 in Atglen alone.)
And the number of hours after poll closing that voters will be able to read final results on the county’s website, www.chesco.org (don’t ask — it’s complicated).
But of course the most important number is how many votes one candidate got more than another candidate, which is all about the winners and losers.
This year, the municipal election — held in the odd years after presidential and off-year elections — will feature races in the county for commissioners, district attorney, sheriff, prothonotary, recorder of deeds, register of wills, and five Common Pleas Court judges, as well as myriad school board members, township supervisors, borough council members, and city council members in Coatesville. The county’s two major parties, Democrat and Republican, have nominated candidates for all of the top county positions, with no third-party candidates on the ballot for those countywide seats.
As it has since 2020, a year after it completed an historic sweep of the county offices, the Democrats hold a slim lead in the number of registered voters — and only a plurality, not a majority. According to figures from the Pennsylvania Department of State, as of Oct. 30 there were 158,250 registered Democrats — or 41.9%— to 150,304 registered Republicans – or 39.8% and 68,829 “third party” or independent voters.
That leaves a margin of 7,946 more registered Democrats in the county than Republicans, slightly more than the margin of 7,433 in the 2022 general election. Which should be good news for the Chester County Democratic Committee.
The committee’s head, Chairwoman Charlotte Valyo, is rallying the party to send a message ahead of the 2024 election, which will put the White House and Congress in play.
“We have an election coming up on November 7th and have seen Republicans nominate extreme candidates for everything from local elections, where Moms for Liberty is trying to destroy our public schools, to county commissions, where Republicans could block the certification of election results, to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where the Republican candidate has taken extreme anti-choice positions,” Valyo said in an e-mail.
“This is our chance for all Pennsylvanians who respect the rule of law, want to keep medical decisions between patients and their doctors, who believe that love is love, and who want to protect our public education system, to join together and send a resounding, unmistakable message to Republicans here and across the country,” she said.
Across the aisle, the Chester County Republican Committee is trying to tie the Democratic candidates for commissioner, district attorney and sheriff to the escape from Chester County Prison in August of convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante.
“Now these elected officials are asking us to re-elect them or promote them to a judicial position,” Chairman Dr. Raffi Terzian was recently quoted as saying. “I say Chester County deserves better. This episode exposed a series of systemic problems and failures.
“We deserve highly competent leadership who puts the interests of its citizens first, who prioritizes safety and security, who act with transparency as the bottom line,” he said. “We cannot trust those who created the problem to fix it. It is time for a change.”
It remains unclear what impact Cavalcante’s escape, which brought out hundreds of residents to complain about the apparent prison system breakdowns to town meetings in two county municipalities where residents had been forced to remain indoors while Cavalcante was still at large in September, will have on election results. Prison Board members Josh Maxwell and Marian Moskowitz are seeking re-election as commissioners, while outgoing District Attorney Deb Ryan and Sheriff Fredda Maddox are seeking election to the Common Pleas Court. All are Democrats.
According to one long time county political observer, the issue could have been damaging to the Democrats but for the Republicans’ problematic response.
“I thought the Republicans fumbled their chance to attack the Democrats and get free national media by attacking them locally when the manhunt was happening — talking about understaffing of corrections officers at the prison etc.,” said the observer, who spoke anonymously to be able to speak freely. “The Republicans were holding press conferences far too late in the day, and they didn’t travel to the press to hold the news conferences in the southern part of the county.
“The Republicans are running a good advertisement now that attempts to attack the Democratic brand locally on the manhunt, which is smart,” the person said. “The issue is will it matter? I doubt it. It’s too little too late.”
That observer said that local elections like this year’s come down to voter turnout, which in the past few election cycles in the county has favored the Democrats. One indication of what the turnout will be — it now hovers around 30% as opposed to the mid 20’s in year’s past — is the number of mail-in ballot requested and returned by party. As it has since the law was changed in 2019 to allow for mail-in ballots with no excuses, the numbers favor the Democratic candidates.
As of Friday, three days after the deadline to ask for a mail-in ballot, 35,847 ballots had been sent to registered Democrats, as opposed to 11,264 Republicans and 6,729 independents and third party voters. Of those, 23,197 Democrats had returned their ballots, compared with 6,642 Republicans and 2,613 “others.”
Said one county Republican observer, “I can say this does not surprise me.”
“It was perfectly fine for Republicans to vote by mail with absentee ballots for decades until Donald Trump demonized mail voting,” the GOP stalwart, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to anger party officials. “Now, many Republicans don’t trust mail voting or anything about how our elections are conducted. Meanwhile Democrats rack up big numbers with mail voting and essentially win elections before Election Day because they trust the process.
“It’s unbelievable how much damage (former President Donald) Trump and his followers have done to the Republican Party and its candidates,” they said. “Republicans will never be able to compete in the vote-by-mail arena until they stop believing the dangerous misinformation spread by the Trump wing of the party.”
It should be noted that even though Republicans filed suit statewide this summer to overturn the 2019 law that made such voting possible, more recently party leaders both statewide and in the county have been promoting bail-in balloting, although with uncertain success.
The rules governing mail-in ballot counting, as in the past, will delay full results reporting until at least Wednesday afternoon or possibly later in the week. Those ballots — possibly more than 53,000 — cannot be counted until after 8 p.m., and must be processed differently than the in-person results.
Results will be available at dailylocal.com.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
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