Category: Pennsylvania Politics

More than two years ago, a Chester County Voter Services employee made a dire prediction.

In an eight-page grievance against Voter Services Director Karen Barsoum, the employee described a hostile work environment in which election workers were subjected to “bullying” from the department’s director.

At the time of the complaint, the employee wrote, 15 people had left the 25-person department since Barsoum was hired in 2021.

“I have very legitimate fears that there will be a mass exodus from voter services in the coming months,” the employee, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, wrote in the grievance document he provided to The Inquirer. “My concern is how this will impact the 370k voters of Chester County.”

Two years later, it appears that his prediction had come true. The number of staff departures since Barsoum took over grew to 29 by November of this year, according to a Chester County spokesperson.

Election offices across the nation have experienced a high level of turnover and staff burnout in recent years in the face of election denialism and threats, but Chester County’s churn-rate is nearly double the number of departures in Montgomery and Delaware Counties’ elections departments that have lost 16 and 15 people respectively in the same time period. Both departments are larger than Chester County’s election office.

Accounts and records from three former staffers at Chester County Voters Services Department, two of whom asked not to be named, paint a picture of a hostile work environment where employees were often made to feel as though management had placed a target on their back.

These concerns have been raised to elected and non-elected county leaders for more than two years.

Barsoum said in an interview that she couldn’t respond to allegations from employees but described her management style as collaborative.

Employees, she said, had left for a variety of reasons including jobs in other Southeast Pennsylvania election offices that pay better than Chester County. Others, she said, left to pursue other opportunities or for family reasons.

Some, she said, left because of the increased pressures of election work as state law changes and the intensity increases.

“I encourage everyone to do what is the best for them,” Barsoum said Thursday.

Though Barsoum acknowledged it was challenging for the office when people left, she said she and other managers were very hands-on in training staff and ensuring that staff members knew the ins and outs of various positions.

The employee who filed the grievance said he feared that the attrition would lead to mistakes during the 2024 presidential election, when the eyes of the nation were on Pennsylvania.

The county reported no major mistakes in 2024.

But in 2025 the department failed to include an office on the May primary ballot and left the names of roughly 75,000 voters off the poll books in November.

Ultimately, everyone who wanted to vote was able to, county officials said. But the error created a chaotic scene as the county kept polls open two additional hours and more than 12,000 voters were asked to cast provisional ballots — which require more steps from election workers and voters to be counted.

The county hired a West Chester law firm to investigate how and why the poll book error occurred.

Chester County’s CEO David Byerman, the county’s top unelected official, said that turnover across all departments can be attributed to a variety of factors in the county including pay and managers.

He described working in elections today as a “pressure cooker” as a result of the political climate.

The investigation, he said, would look closely at management in the department and whether factors existed that would have hindered staff from identifying or reporting concerns.

“The very fact that we’re doing an investigation into what happened last month … indicates that we want to learn more about what happened in this particular election,” Byerman said. “Part of that investigation is looking at the performance of our management team in voter services.”

It’s unclear at this stage whether the error can be attributed to the turnover and environment in voter services, but Paul Manson, a professor at Portland State University who researches challenges faced by election workers, said the turnover seen in Chester County is unusual and alarming.

Often, Manson said, staff tends to be relatively stable in election offices because they care deeply about the work. Stressors of reduced staffing and the toxic environment described by three former employees, he said, could create a dynamic that makes mistakes more likely.

“When we have these periods of turnover local election officials really sort of grit their teeth because they worry about these small errors turning into big errors,” he said.

Allegations of ‘hostility’ toward staff

Barsoum, who came to Chester County from Berks County in 2021, has earned respect in the election field nationally and within Pennsylvania. Barsoum had been the assistant director in the Berks election office.

“Karen Barsoum has an extraordinary knowledge that is a resource both statewide here in Pennsylvania and has been a resource nationally. I don’t think anyone doubts her knowledge of election processes,” said Byerman, the Chester County CEO.

“At the end of the day I think any manager needs to combine two abilities. An ability to manage an office effectively and an ability to be knowledgeable and an expert.”

Byerman said each manager in the county is evaluated on these criteria regularly, but when asked whether Barsoum possessed both qualities, Byerman did not respond.

Former county employees said Barsoum’s high reputation outside Chester County did not align with what they experienced in their jobs.

The employee who filed the grievance against Barsoum said he got along with her well when she started and he received high marks on performance reviews, according to documents provided to The Inquirer.

But after a reorganization in the department in 2022, he said, he noticed that more and more staff members were leaving. The employee was promoted to a new role and during the 2022 election did that job while maintaining responsibilities from his prior role.

He said he expressed concern about being overworked and received little support in the new role. After the employee said he dropped the ball on a minor item and reported it to Barsoum, she began treating him differently.

“In Karen’s eyes you’re either 100% right or 100% wrong,” he said in an interview.

The employee filed his grievance in August of 2023 after a meeting where, he said, Barsoum listed accomplishments of staff members and refused to acknowledge any of his work.

Barsoum’s “hostility” toward him in the meeting was so noticeable, he wrote in the complaint, that eight colleagues approached him afterward to say they noticed it.

“After so many months of mistreatment and disrespect in such a hostile work environment, it eventually gets to the point that something needs to be said. If the Presidential Election were to not run smoothly next year and ChesCo voters were disenfranchised due to the Voter Services, I would forever regret not sending this grievance,” the employee wrote in his grievance.

That employee left the department the next year. He was placed on a performance-improvement plan weeks after submitting his grievance, and, after completing that plan, he was placed on another as a result of a low performance review and quit before he could be terminated.

Elizabeth Sieb, who worked at the election office for eight years before leaving in 2022, said she had similar experiences with Barsoum to those detailed in the grievance. For the past year and a half she has been telling county officials about her concerns.

In 2022, Barsoum reorganized the office to respond to the new stressors of elections and new responsibilities that come with mail voting. Since then, she said, she and staff work to evaluate after each election what worked and what didn’t so adjustments can be made.

But Sieb said Barsoum didn’t take constructive criticism well when changes were made and stifled discussion among staff members.

Sieb was fired from the department in 2022. She said she was placed on a personal-improvement plan that demanded that she seek mental health treatment and subsequently placed on a three-day unpaid suspension.

Following the suspension, Sieb said, she was directed not to speak to her colleagues if it was not directly related to her work. She said she was fired for violating that rule when she reported to a lower-level manager concerns about another manager speaking disparagingly about a job applicant in earshot of other employees.

Sieb, who at times questioned Barsoum’s decisions, said she felt that the director was threatened by long-term staff and was prone to outbursts when employees would correct her.

“She was slowly but surely wearing down and getting rid of all the people that had been there a long time,” Sieb said.

Jennifer Morrell, the CEO of the Elections Group, a company that assists local election officials, said turnover in election offices happens for a variety of reasons — including the long hours and relatively low pay civil servants receive.

She noted that training programs from state agencies and associations are designed to help prevent errors as a result of turnover and that a larger department, like Chester County, may be able to fill rolls with election workers from other counties.

“Karen is highly respected in the election community, super professional,” Morrell said. “Our hearts just ached with what happened because it could have happened to anybody.”

Commissioners respond to concerns

After leaving the department, Sieb said, she believed she suffered from PTSD related to her experience.

Beginning in 2024 she began reaching out to Republican Commissioner Eric Roe with her concerns. Roe, Sieb said, investigated the complaints and brought them to the other commissioners, Democrats Josh Maxwell and Marian D. Moskowitz. The commissioners also serve as the county’s election board.

“I have had a lot of people come to me with various concerns throughout county government, and voter services is certainly one of them,” Roe told The Inquirer, explaining that his role as minority party commissioner makes him a frequent recipient of workforce complaints.

But a year and a half later, Barsoum remained in her role and Sieb continued to hear from her former colleagues with concerns. Twice this year, Sieb went before the Chester County Election Board to raise public concerns about turnover under Barsoum.

Maxwell, who chairs the Chester County Election Board, said the county reviews reports from departments when they receive them. He said he was unable to comment on specific departments or personnel matters but said the county needed to do everything it could to support its election workers.

“We need to do a better job, I think, making sure that people feel valued. Including the folks that unfortunately we’ve lost,” he said.

Election work in Pennsylvania and elsewhere has gotten increasingly fraught. The work itself is more intense than it once was with more mail voting, and workers now deal with threats, longer hours, and a camera on them when they’re working with ballots.

“We were seen as clerical people, maybe, in the past; now we are wearing many different hats,” Barsoum said.

Moskowitz attributed much of the turnover in the county to burnout and noted the threats that election employees have faced in her years on the job.

Barsoum became emotional as she said she had worked to ensure that her staff had the resources they needed to feel safe, including mental health resources through the Human Resources department, team building outside election cycles, and a space for workers to step off camera.

“We can count on each other; we lean on each other. It’s a strong bond, a camaraderie,” she said.

When hiring new staffers, Barsoum said she warns them of what’s to come — that they’re not walking into a normal 9-to-5 job, that they won’t be able to plan vacations through about half of the year, and that they’ll be asked to take phone calls from irate people.

It’s a lifestyle, she said, that isn’t right for everyone — including some parents.

“If you’re leaning on a daycare and that is your sole, the go-to, it will be very hard to work in the department because there is 24/7 operations, and there are so many things that are going off and beyond the regular work schedule.”

Maxwell and Moskowitz declined to comment specifically when asked if they were confident in Barsoum’s leadership, but Maxwell has repeatedly asked residents to direct their anger at November’s error at him rather than Barsoum or her staff.

“I think it’s important that we protect these folks and we empower them to make the best decisions possible,” Maxwell said at an election board meeting last week.

Speaking to The Inquirer, he reiterated that point.

“We want to make sure that people feel welcomed and empowered and are in a working environment they appreciate,” Maxwell said in an interview.

“Elections have changed so much in five years it’s not surprising to me that some people want to find something new to do.”

This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.