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The election director in Chester County, under fire for a series of administrative errors and accusations of a hostile work environment, is resigning from her role.
In a Thursday memo to staff of the county’s voter services department, Karen Barsoum said her final day with the county would be June 12, after the county’s 2026 primary election results are certified.
“After careful consideration, I feel it is the right time for me to embrace new opportunities for both professional and personal growth,” the letter said. “After my service with the County ends, I will be announcing my future plans.”
Barsoum had faced criticism from the public in recent months following a highly publicized pollbook error in the 2025 municipal election and more recent revelations that the county had misprinted names on mail ballot applications in that same election. She also faced complaints of a toxic work culture at the department under her management.
Last November, the county’s pollbooks, which are used to check in voters at polling places, were printed without independent or third-party voters, forcing those voters to either cast provisional ballots or return once supplemental pollbooks could be printed. The error resulted in more than 12,000 voters having to cast provisional ballots, although nearly all of them were eventually counted.
An independent investigation eventually determined that human error was the root cause of the mistake, but that poor employee training and insufficient double-checking had compounded it and allowed the erroneous pollbooks to be deployed on Election Day.
At a county board of elections meeting in February discussing the error and the county’s plan to prevent it from happening again in the future, speakers called for Barsoum to be fired. Some were former employees of the department who accused department leadership of creating a negative work environment. In December, The Philadelphia Inquirer published a report highlighting the department’s high staff turnover under Barsoum, with some former employees accusing her of “bullying” and creating a “hostile work environment.”
Shortly after that February meeting, Votebeat and Spotlight PA reported that the county had sent mail ballot applications to voters that mistakenly switched the voters’ first and last names, which the county said was the result of a printing error made by its vendor.
Asked what her plans were after leaving the department, Barsoum referred Votebeat and Spotlight PA to the statement in her letter that she will announce that after her employment with the county ends.
A spokesperson for the county said the board of elections “appreciates Ms. Barsoum’s work on behalf of the Department of Voter Services over the past five years” and that it is moving quickly to find a new director.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.