Bucks County, Pennsylvania, received nearly $5 million from the state for election integrity since 2023, but the county was successfully sued for violating election law as voters were turned away after waiting for hours in long lines during the 2024 election cycle.
Democrat Bucks County Commissioner Robert Harvie blamed the long lines — which were the subject of successful litigation from the campaigns of President-elect Donald Trump and Senator-elect Dave McCormick — on budget restraints, despite Bucks County’s receipt of about $4.98 million from a Pennsylvania state program designed to shore up election administration and integrity. Bucks County is again in the news after Harvie and fellow Democrat Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia moved Thursday to count deficient ballots as defeated Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey holds out hope that he can win his race after a recount.
The Pennsylvania Election Integrity Grants Program (EIGP) dollars are specifically meant to fund election workers and cover their training, secure and transport equipment needed for elections, print ballots, administer post-election procedures and similar matters, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.
Bucks County received nearly $2.5 million in EIGP funds in 2023, with about $1.45 million of those funds going unspent in 2023 and rolling into 2024, according to records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The county also received an additional $2.49 million in EIGP dollars in 2024, bringing the grand total of EIGP funds received by Bucks County up to nearly $5 million.
However, the funding did not translate into an uneventful, routine election season in Bucks County.
Long lines formed outside some of the locations where voters needed to go to apply for mail-in ballots, even wrapping around the block at one facility in Doylestown on Oct. 29, which was supposed to be the last day for voters to apply in person for a mail-in or absentee ballot. Officials decided to intervene and cut the line that afternoon, meaning that many voters would effectively be turned away that day if they were queued up behind the cut-off point.
That decision triggered lawsuits from the McCormick and Trump campaigns. A judge subsequently ordered that the deadline be extended until the close of business on Friday at the end of that week because the decision to turn voters away was in violation of state election code.
The missteps are notable in light of the fact that Bucks County was among the most important swing counties in the 2024 election’s most important battleground state.
Mariann Davies, a Trump campaign volunteer and Bucks County resident who sat outside the Doylestown facility for the entire day on Oct. 29, recalled observing the situation develop and immediately thinking that the confusion and frustration was the result of poor planning on the part of Bucks County officials.
“They could have projected that there would be a large number of voters coming in to deliver their mail-in ballots in person, or request their mail-in ballots in person and deliver it then,” Davies told the DCNF. “It was short-sighted to not have adequate staff to handle the volume and not provide enough equipment.”
“I did say one thing to a commissioner. It was Commissioner Harvie. At some point, he came out of the building, and there was media from all over the place across the street. He was about to talk, and I called out to him, saying something like, ‘Why was it so short-sighted that they did not hire extra staff and more equipment?’” Davies continued. “Bob Harvie responded that their budget didn’t include that — something to that effect.”
In this image, voters are seen waiting in line at a mail in ballot facility in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024. (Photo via Daily Caller News Foundation)
Harvie, one of the two Democrat commissioners in Bucks County, blamed the disorder on budgeting issues in remarks to the press.
“This is only the second presidential election we had with this system in place,” Harvie said, according to an Oct. 30 story by CBS News Philadelphia.
“It is a very cumbersome process. We don’t have limitless resources here. We have a fixed number of staff. We have a fixed budget,” Harvey said, according to the CBS News Philadelphia report.
To James Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania election attorney, the issues seen in Bucks County this election cycle are evidently the product of poor logistical planning.
“There was insufficient preparation and allocation of resources, that’s fair to say,” Fitzpatrick told the DCNF. “No matter what party a voter belonged to, they were waiting in these long lines at in person mail ballot facilities. They know it takes approximately 12 minutes to complete the whole process of printing the proper forms. Well, they should have had sufficient infrastructure in place to deal with that timing, especially when they’re advertising it far and wide as an option for voting.”
Harvie, Ellis-Marseglia and Republican Bucks County Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo did not respond to requests for comment.
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