When discussing the 2020 presidential election, one word continues to crop up among county officials: “Unprecedented.”

The unusual election created havoc in the election bureaus in all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, including Butler.

Aaron G. Sheasley, Butler County elections director, said many hurdles were overcome in October and November because of a successful collaboration between many county departments.

He said a main problem was that, for the first time, voters could cast their ballot in one of three ways.

Voting at their precinct, turning in a ballot at the elections bureau before Election Day and mailing in a completed ballot were used by the thousands who voted in November.

“So, you are having three sub-elections happening at the same time,” Sheasley said.

The lead-up to the election also required the county to hire temporary elections bureau staff from two temporary employment agencies and train those employees to help out as voters, calls and ballots poured in.

“Because of the incredible turnout, it required an incredible amount of personnel that we don't usually have,” said Wil White, county solicitor. “From an administrative point of view, I would say the staffing was an incredible problem.”

Leslie Osche, county commissioners chairwoman, said there was a “long list” of hurdles faced by the county, all through no fault of its own.

She said state's Act 77 allowed any voter to fill out and send in a mail-in ballot, which elections bureau staff dealt with for the first time.

Changes in election rules from the state Supreme Court also cropped up as Election Day neared.

Voters were confused by applications for mail-in ballots sent to their homes from third-party groups, and hundreds called the county because the applications contained the county elections bureau address.The volume of calls was so overwhelming that an elections bureau call center was created to field the voters' queries.“And there was the hype and use of social media to create panic and problems,” Osche said.On Election Day, 111,536 of the 143,205 registered voters in the county cast their ballot. That equals a 78% turnout in the county as folks voted for Donald Trump or Joe Biden.Sheasley said a few issues cropped up when a scanner here or there would refuse to accept ballots, but spare scanners were at the ready for those precincts.Regarding the cost of the election, Sheasley said the county had budgeted about $700,000.Because of the myriad issues associated with the 2020 election, the total cost for the primary, general and a special election that occurred in the county amounted to about $974,000.Sheasley said money from a county Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act grant was used to pay the overage.White said the state reimburses counties for special elections, which was the case in the race for the 8th Pennsylvania House District in March between Republican Tim Bonner and Democrat Phil Heasley.Sheasley said the county received $61,375 to cover the special election, which saw Bonner fill the unexpired seat of Ted Nesbitt, who resigned early in the year to begin a position as a Mercer County common pleas judge.The issue of an unknown number of mail-in ballots that were sent from the elections bureau to voters and went missing in October remains unresolved, Sheasley and White said.

Sheasley announced in November that the U.S. Postal Service was conducting an investigation into the missing ballots, but no report has been issued to the county as yet, he said.The voters who did not receive their ballots either came to the county government building to vote, requested another mail-in ballot or voted at their precinct.Osche said the county plans to look into the issue to determine how many first ballots were canceled, so the voters whose ballots were lost could vote in another manner.“Anybody who was bound and determined to vote, if they felt like they were not going to get their ballot, they either went to the poll or came into the election bureau,” Osche said. “That's why the lines were so long.”White said he and Sheasley met with inspectors from the U.S. Post Office as well as the state attorney general's office.They were told an investigation is ongoing.White expects a report to be released to the county when the investigation is complete.

Osche said Butler County was the last to have their votes certified because of issues with the voting software.The county is working with the Pennsylvania Department of State on the issue, she said.“We are just trying to understand why some of these things occurred, so we can make sure they don't occur going forward,” Osche said. “Ultimately, they didn't have any effect on the (vote) counts.”The ballots are kept by the county for a time before being shipped to a county storage facility for long-term safekeeping, Osche said.Sheasley called the election an “all-hands-on-deck” event in which many county departments worked together to get the job done.“It was a team effort and that's very important,” he said. “It was definitely trying, but we survived and carried it off.”White agreed.“It was unprecedented,” he said. “We certainly had some hiccups along the way, but I think in the end, we were generally pleased with the results and we will learn from those (issues) going forward.”