A look at the Lehigh Valley’s top election news in 2023
From school board races to a voting machine misfire, 2023 was quite a year for election news in the Lehigh Valley. Here’s a look at the top stories.
Northampton County’s Election Day problems
Shortly after voting began on Nov. 7, some Northampton County poll workers noticed something was amiss: Votes for two state Superior Court judge retention questions in some cases were switched on a printout voters reviewed to verify their selections.
That led county officials to suspend usage of all voting machines and switch to paper ballots. Voters eventually resumed using the machines after the county determined votes were recorded properly on the units.
Voters and poll workers later described chaos at several polling places, resulting from contradictory instructions by some poll workers, a shortage of emergency paper ballots, a lack of privacy when casting votes on paper ballots and reports that some people were told to return later to vote.
Northampton County certifies election results despite opposition from large crowd
Afterward:
– Charles Dertinger, the county administration director whose responsibilities included overseeing elections, resigned on Nov. 24.
– County council on Dec. 7 created an Election Integrity Committee to provide oversight of elections.
– State Rep. Milou Mackenzie, a Republican whose 131st District includes parts of Northampton County, several times urged county Executive Lamont McClure to resign over the Election Day problems.
In a Dec. 8 letter to Gov. Josh Shapiro and Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt, Mackenzie asked the state to provide specific instructions to McClure to prevent similar mistakes from recurring. She also wrote that she intends to introduce legislation that would improve election-related communications between the state and counties.
“Voters need the assurance that their votes are recorded properly, both on the machine and on all paper receipts,” she wrote.
In response, Schmidt said, the state is “confident the county is taking all appropriate steps to ensure a similar error does not occur in future elections.”
He also expressed confidence in the ExpressVote XL voting machines used in Northampton County, noting the problem was caused by human error that was not caught during pre-election testing of the machines.
He added the state will review and update voting machine testing guidelines and provide additional training “to help counties detect human errors like this and correct them before Election Day.”
Fallout from Northampton County voting machine problems continues
Bellwether school board races draw high interest
No school board races were more closely watched in 2023 than those taking place in Parkland, East Penn and Southern Lehigh. The contests pitted Democratic slates that included Republicans against Republican slates of newcomers spurred, in part, by their opposition to pandemic policies on school closings and mandated masking.
Takeaways from the Nov. 7 school board races in the Lehigh Valley
In Parkland, East Penn and Southern Lehigh, Democratic slates headed for victory
In many ways, the three races were a bellwether for the national discourse on cultural issues as many but not all Republican slate candidates spoke of support for school library book restrictions and a rollback of transgender policies on restrooms and locker rooms.
Days prior to Nov. 7, party leaders and candidates on both sides allowed that they didn’t know what the outcome would be. On election night, the Democratic slates pulled ahead early and stayed that way.
This happened despite being outspent by Republican slates that received heavy financial lifting from Republican business leaders in the Lehigh Valley and Paul Martino, a Bucks County venture capitalist who has been funding similar Republican slates himself or through his Back to School PA PAC.
With five seats up for election in East Penn and Southern Lehigh and six in Parkland, the Democratic slate victories gave the winners a majority voice on their boards.
Voter turnout
Turnout in the Nov. 7 election in the Lehigh Valley was the highest for an off-year election since 2013, the last year that data is available online locally. Lehigh County’s turnout was 31.3%, while Northampton County’s was 33.2%.
While turnout in 2023 improved, it still was significantly lower compared to elections in even-numbered years, when high-profile races for president, federal and state offices top the ballot. In 2022, turnout was 58.4% in Northampton and 58.7% in Lehigh. In the presidential election year of 2020, turnout was 75.7% in Northampton and 74.7% in Lehigh.
2023 voting by the numbers
Lehigh County
Ballots cast: 75,127
Election Day: 51,622
Mail Ballots: 23,123
Provisional: 382
Northampton County
Ballots Cast: 72,636
Election Day: 47,015
Mail ballots: 25,422
Provisional: 199
Democrats sweep county seats
Democrats swept the majority of races for county posts in Lehigh and Northampton.
The breakdown included all four seats for Lehigh County commissioner as well as for coroner, controller and clerk of judicial records, the latter of which was uncontested. Republicans in Lehigh won uncontested county races for district attorney and sheriff.
In Lehigh County, Democrats sweep commissioner, controller and coroner races
Key Democratic wins in Lehigh Valley tied to messaging, voter turnout
In Northampton, Democrats claimed a county judicial race, three of four seats on county council to gain a majority, the controller’s seat as well as the uncontested district attorney post, which saw a vigorous battle in the May primary but was uncontested on Nov. 7.
Meanwhile, Democrats in Bethlehem fended off a rare Republican challenge for three council seats, maintaining the party’s full control of the board. The Easton mayoral and council races were uncontested, posting party wins for Democrats there as well. In Whitehall, the mayoral race also went to a Democrat. Democrats also swept the Saucon Valley School Board and Lower Saucon Township Council, where voter dissatisfaction with township decisions on leaving the Hellertown Library and a landfill rezoning drove turnout.
To be sure, Republicans did well in Republican-dominated municipalities and school districts, posting sweeps in contested races in Bangor Area, Nazareth Area and Northern Lehigh. They also claimed an equal share of victories in places like Emmaus and Lower Nazareth Township.
Party leaders and others tied the Democratic victories to messaging and a ground game that fueled turnout, especially through efforts to boost mail-in voting.
Legal battles over mail-in ballots continued
The ping-ponging over problem dates on mail-in ballots continued in 2023. Going into the Nov. 7 election, the Department of State’s guidance to counties that they set aside ballots with missing or incorrect dates still held from its issuance a year earlier.
That changed two weeks after the election when Judge Susan Paradise Baxter of the U.S. Western Pennsylvania District issued a 77-page opinion on Nov. 21 that said the rejection of such ballots violates the materiality provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Lehigh and Northampton were among the 12 county defendants.
Federal judge invalidates date requirement on mail-in ballots
Baxter’s ruling led the state to rescind the guidance – in time for some counties, including Lehigh, to decide to include those ballots in their certified results for the Nov. 7 election.
As expected, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania on Dec. 6 appealed Baxter’s ruling to the federal 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Philadelphia. The Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee now want in, filing a motion to intervene.
The matter is now back in the same appellate court that ruled in favor of counting ballots with problem dates in a lawsuit involving a 2021 Lehigh County judicial race. The ruling was later declared moot by the U.S. Supreme Court when the problem ballots were counted and Democrat Zachary Cohen declared the winner over Republican David Ritter by five votes.
The matter is likely to end up in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court again.
Judicial campaign spending
The money spent on the campaigns for Northampton County judge, where Democrat Brian Panella tallied 54.3% of the vote in defeating Republican Nancy Aaroe, was the highest amount in recent years. The two campaigns spent nearly a total of about $450,000, according to campaign finance reports.
Still, that paled in comparison to the state Supreme Court election, where Democrat Dan McCaffery defeated Republican Carolyn Carluccio. Candidates, their supporting PACs and other groups spent at least $22 million, a record for a statewide judicial contest, Spotlight PA reported in mid-November.
District attorney elections
Both counties will see new district attorneys take office next month.
Stephen Baratta, who resigned his position as a Northampton County county judge to run for district attorney, will take office next month.
Baratta won a hard-fought and bitter primary battle for the Democratic nomination, defeating one-term incumbent Terry Houck with 54.5% of the vote. Between them, they spent more than $400,000 in the primary race when factoring in primary campaign expenses and the value of in-kind contributions.
In Norco, Baratta defeats Houck for DA Democratic nomination
With no Republican on the primary ballot, Houck ran a write-in campaign as insurance in case he lost the Democratic primary. He won enough votes to capture the GOP nomination for the Nov. 7 election but in August withdrew from the race, citing the high cost of continuing his campaign.
In Lehigh County, Gavin Holihan’s path to district attorney was much smoother. He was unopposed in the GOP primary and the general election in the race to succeed DA Jim Martin.
Martin, who is 78 and decided to retire after 25 years in office, appointed Holihan as his first district attorney in January, making him the heir apparent for the position.