County Board of Elections Moves to New Office Under New Leadership

Press Release provided by Bucks County 

The Bucks County Board of Elections / Voter Registration Office has a new home – and a new director it announced recently.

The Board of Elections moved its operations last weekend into a newly refurbished office on the second floor of the Bucks County Administration Building, 55 East Court Street in Doylestown. Before being renovated, the area had been occupied by the Recorder of Deeds Office, which has relocated to the sixth floor of the same building.

The move is part of an ongoing, floor-by-floor renovation project at the Administration Building, begun after court operations and court-related offices moved in recent years across the street to the new Justice Center at 100 North Main Street.

Repurposing the Administration Building is enabling Bucks County to centralize more of its operations in Doylestown, saving taxpayer dollars by selling off county-owned satellite offices and discontinuing leases at others.

The Board of Elections Office move was a relatively short one – relocating from one end of the Administration Building’s second floor to the other. The space it previously occupied is now being renovated for use by the county’s Human Resources division, currently located off-site.

Human Resources is expected to move into its new offices this summer, when the renovation project is scheduled to conclude.

Overseeing the Board of Elections move is its newly appointed director, Thomas A. Freitag, who was promoted to the top job last month by the Bucks County Commissioners. His appointment on Dec. 4 filled a vacancy created when former Interim Director Katie Pliszka resigned in July.

Freitag, a lifelong resident of Trevose, is a graduate of Archbishop Wood High School and Kutztown University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 2010. 

He joined the Board of Elections in 2014 as a registrar and was promoted in 2015 to election coordinator. Freitag directed the office during the past election cycle, when Bucks County enjoyed a relatively trouble-free general election in November despite higher-than-usual turnout for a municipal cycle.

Freitag officially takes the reins at a challenging and important time for the Board of Elections. The office will be overseeing three separate elections this year – a March 17 special election in Bensalem, the April 28 presidential primary and the Nov. 3 presidential general election, when unusually high voter turnout is expected.

In addition, the county is in the process of introducing a new, state-required voting system using hand-marked paper ballots and new state-enacted procedures that are expected to expand absentee and mail-in voting.

An extensive campaign to educate both pollworkers and the voting public is underway throughout the county. See here for details of the public training schedule: https://tinyurl.com/sjnxyat

In addition, the county commissioners have announced two-hour training opportunities on the first floor of the Administration Building immediately after their next six business meetings. Details here: https://tinyurl.com/qvse9fj