Yawn. The famous investigation of Chester County Voter Services is complete, but what will actually happen? Will it be like the famous Advaite investigation?
AND LET US REMAIN CLEAR: THIS WAS NO ELECTION CONSPIRACY THEORY OR WHACKADOODLE TINFOIL HAT BRIGADES THAT CAUSED THIS ELECTION 2025 DEBACLE, IT WAS HUMAN ERROR AND GOOD LEADERHIP SHOULD START WITH THE DEPARTMENT HEAD AND THAT AIN’T KAREN BARSOUM IS IT?
What are the odds on this?
Here is what the county has released below….I am not particularly excited because in my humble opinion, someone else will take the blame and Karen Barsoum will remain and I am a poet and didn’t even know it…
They SHOULD remove Karen Barsoum from her office…..but hey that would make to much sense, right?
Oh look we got a letter from “Chester” – I guess it was supposed to say “Chester County” ?
This was to let us know my husband’s vote was counted….a month later. It was the smallest print imaginable and completely half-assed. It was also not even on county letterhead or Department of Voter Services letterhead. It was on cheap copy paper, cheapest weight possible . Dated 12/5/25 and mailed from West Chester.
It did not even say sorry we screwed up or more specifically that Karen Barsoum screwed up.
Obviously Barsoum is not sorry because she has had a month now to apologize to the voters of Chester County.
This entire episode has been pathetic. It was never an election or political conspiracy, it was gross incompetence….and it continues with this pathetic form letter.
So guess what? My husband‘s provisional ballot is one of the ones that apparently does not count.
I have covered up the number of his ballot for privacy sake for the screenshot above, but I can tell you I am still checking it and his vote is nowhere to be found.
NOWHERE. It’s like it didn’t exist, like he didn’t exist as an Independent on Election Day. It is like they ate his provisional ballot.
Am I surprised? Nope.
Of course, you also can’t get anybody on the phone in voter services let alone the esteemed director who has been invisible since the election day debacle. If it’s not a fluffy, self-aggrandizing media interview, she’s invisible and to date, unapologetic so whom is she in the process of blaming?
So this is kind of why litigation is being filed, isn’t it?
Here’s the link to the county’s bogus press release:
I personally don’t have faith in voter services at this point. And Karen Barsoum the department head and she needs to go.
She can’t hide behind the county commissioner she hides behind, which is Josh Maxwell. I think he’s trying to be kind and be fair because that’s totally the way he is, but Barsoum is doing Josh Maxwell a great disservice. IMHO she is damaging his political credibility.
I do not blame Josh Maxwell for this, but I so do blame Karen Barsoum.
This photo is from a Google search and it’s just a screenshot
Well, it’s no secret that election day was a total study in incompetence, gross incompetence, on the part of the Chester County Director of Voter Services Karen Barsoum. I am starting this post reminding the knee jerk reaction chorus in the rear of the attention span auditorium that I am not an election conspiracy theorist. I am not a voting conspiracy theorist I am not saying there was malicious intent, what I am saying is there was gross incompetence.
I am really, quite honestly tired of the people defending this woman. She’s been here long enough and worked in another voter services department in Berks County prior to this that she should not have screwed things up this election or the spring primary where she actually left an entire row office race off of the ballot.
This is something procedurally that it remains the same. There’s one procedure in the spring, there’s another procedure in the fall. Epic fail, pure and simple.
I have mentioned before the crazy amount of turnover in that office. That’s because people don’t want work with her, in my opinion. People need jobs, so if they aren’t taking jobs in that department or constantly leaving, there’s a reason.
Basically, we have heard from everyone, except Karen Barsoum. Her socials are suddenly quite quiet and seem scrubbed as well.
She should’ve been front and center at the county commissioners meeting yesterday, even if just to make a brief statement and leave the room. Everyone has been apologizing for this situation except her. And to be honest given how much she loves the sound bite going back to Berks County, I find that odd.
Obviously to stand up and own is not as fun as being on 60 Minutes or quoted in USA Today or whatever, but you have to have a accountability for the good and the bad and she doesn’t ever seem to have accountability and it’s time for her to be accountable. Then it’s time for her to go.
This is right off the social media of certain Democrat state representatives. I didn’t imagine this out of thin air.
I’m glad they see things the way average people do because I had some toadstool from Easttown or close to that vicinity basically accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist today over this whole debacle with voter services.
I’m not. I never have been.
This is a simple case of incompetency at the top of that department. The director is Karen Barsoum. This is on her.
And then there was the woman who said the only one I was impressing with my independent status was myself, and I should just shut up. Oh yeah, for real see below screenshot :
Now let’s review: I’m pretty sure if I remember what people told me in the past once they are ready to get the “books” printed for the election they have to check over everything and I’m sure there are all sorts of things that they have to check in some kind of a computer program, right?
At that point, they first have to generate the books in-house and then they go to an outside printer, correct?
Unless they changed it it’s not a magical overnight process is it it’s a process that would occur probably the week before the election last week right?
So who checked the work before it went to the printer? I mean with a problem this big if they even sampled random “books“ from around the county wouldn’t they have found this mistake? One of my sources told me they did not reprint the spring books so this is just a colossal screwup, isn’t it?
So working on the theory that the books would have been sent to be printed last week and delivered last week why didn’t anybody check them when they first came back in final printed for him to make sure they were correct?
Now I get that this department is now short staffed but wouldn’t a reasonable procedure be to check a sampling of the books to make sure they were correct?
So they’re going to be a lot of questions that need to be answered in the days ahead, but if the PA Attorney General gets involved, remember he’s having months long issues with some database, isn’t he?
My new hashtag is #firekarenbarsoum
I also have to ask is Chester County going to be able to certify these elections?
This is a huge debacle.
And it’s Karen Barsoum‘s fault this is her department. She’s made a big deal how she’s such a leader. A leader and competent manager would have checked her department’s work.
Judge Rovito has extended voting until 10 PM. The only issue I have with that is the Democrats and Republicans as far as registered voters weren’t disenfranchised today. It was those who are Independent or unaffiliated. So really why should Republican and Democrat registered voters get extra time to vote when it was in Independents and other unaffiliated who were in effect disenfranchised?
I am so angry as an Independent Voter in Chester County right now. According to Chester County Voters services, we don’t count. Yes, for real, for real. Chester County has now acknowledged somewhat insufficiently they ALL poll books at all precincts THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRETY OF CHESTER COUNTY currently do not include the names of “third-party voters”!
First of all we matter. We are not insignificant, and quite frankly the numbers of Chester County Independents is sizable.
This is bullshit and yes I am cursing.
Karen Barsoum has one job: to protect the voters of Chester County. She’s not doing it. She has incredibly high staff turnover for one. Why is that? Well watch this video:
Karen Barsoum has ONE job as head of voter services , to keep voters and their votes safe. To maintain integrity of our elections. This is an inexcusable mistake. It is wreaking havoc county wide.
She needs to GO. Whether she resigns or is let go, it needs to happen.
I mean why in the actual hell are there so many overlords in Chester County Government if they can’t seem to keep tabs on this woman? She isn’t doing her job. Elections and voting are bad enough, we don’t need Karen Barsoum continually making it worse. Period. Full stop.
In August 2021, above screenshot was the headline news in Berks County, where Chester County’s head of voter services came from:
WEST CHESTER – Chester County Commissioners Marian Moskowitz, Josh Maxwell and Michelle Kichline announced the appointment of Karen Barsoum as director of Chester County’s Department of Voter Services.
Barsoum brings to Chester County Voter Services more than 10 years of experience working within municipal government, including seven years as assistant director of election services for Berks County.
OK this. This is off the hook. This is the absolute BEST gem of the week and if the media or public had watched the recent Chester County Commissioners meeting this is all anyone would be talking about.
A woman made a public comment regarding the Voter Services director, Karen Barsoum. She was a former employee. One of my sources today told me that this woman was so excited to join voter services at first she felt like she was taking a job that made a difference.
So this lady is one of the former employees. I think she is really brave is coming forward the way she did.
She spoke about how Barsoum supposedly reacted to staff about the prothonotary being left off of the ballot and employees were treated, the high turnover rate, supposedly how HR has been involved and has done nothing and how can that be?
There has been an insane turnover rate and this woman who spoke said that only 3 seasoned employees remain since she was hired. A total of 27 left and/or got fired. The total number of employees for the department is now about 22?
There have been other issues with candidates getting on the ballot, etc., for this upcoming election that they haven’t talked about publicly and it seems to me there’s more going on here than has actually been discussed publicly and doesn’t public deserve to know what’s really going on in County Row?
So I know who one of the other elected officials is who is not on the ballot. It is the current chair of the West Whiteland Supervisors, Rajesh Kumbhardare.
Rajesh Kumbhardare, Raj as he is known to most is a very nice, hardworking man. He gives his all for his township and he decided to run for reelection. So he did contact voter services. I am told by my sources voter services was contacted to make sure he had everything in order to file. What I didn’t know until all of this is that it’s a bit of a different procedure as an incumbent versus somebody running for the first time.
My sources told me today that Raj turned his financials in to the township. When he filed his paperwork at voter services, however, they told him he had everything. Then after the fact they told him he didn’t have his financials and rejected him. His only recourse was to basically appeal to the courts, and at that point I was told that even some people from voter services did try to help him.
However, when he went to court and in front of Judge Verway , the judge denied him. Now people have to write him in on the ballot during the upcoming election to get him on the ballot for the fall. He should be on in the first place.
Now I know nothing about these filings so I asked someone else about the financial form. Someone said that the requirement to turn that financial form in with the other paperwork to voter services is a stateregulation. But what concerns him he said is that no one caught that.
So if that’s a state regulation, why wasn’t he told when he called voter services initially this is a person who I am told is very detail oriented, so I am siding with him, although I really don’t know the man.
Further and to the point, I am told by other people that this has happened quite a few people this election season.
I think this is a county office in deep trouble. And I’m guessing a lot of of us would like to be a fly on the wall about what happened in the voter services office after these comments at the commissioners’ meeting, right?
Look, I don’t know what’s going on with County Row, but we deserve to feel secure in our elections, and after these mistakes and the recent county commissioners’ meeting, I now have legitimate concerns that we are.
My opinion is probably not going to be popular with some in the county, but that woman who spoke was even and calm and measured, and it was obviously very hard for her to have to speak her peace on this. I respect her for coming forward and I think everyone should. 
I will tell you in all fairness, that there were a couple of times when I had to call voter services and the people who answered the phone were very nice. But I can also tell you that the first time I called I was so impressed by the woman who answered the phone, that I wrote her name down.
There was a significant amount of time between when I called the first time and when I called the second time that lady wasn’t there anymore. And the second time I called is when this new director had taken the job. Coincidence? I honestly have no idea.
And again, I’m not trying to start a witch hunt here, but something is obviously very wrong with this office. Now, because there are problems with this office, there are people that have gotten left off the ballot who shouldn’t have been left off a ballot and I think that’s ridiculous.
Is my opinion that the county commissioners have to stop doing things like hiring CFOs and CXOs and start paying attention.
I also find it sad that not one single commissioner at that May 5 meeting even thanked that woman for the courage of standing up and leaving a public comment. I was also astounded at how empty the meeting was and how the media hasn’t picked up on this.
Less photo ops more governing, please. And while we’re talking about things, you never hear about Chester County any longer isn’t it interesting how the whole Advaite of it all has just disappeared?
I swear things happen in this county at the county level and you hear about it early on and then it all disappears doesn’t it? So what happens when you take the dust out from underneath the rug where things have been swept?
