Democrats maintained control of Delco. Now they need to appoint a Republican to help them run the 2024 election.

Democrats won big in Delaware County last week — and they’ve already turned their attention to 2024.

All five members of Delaware County Council are Democrats, but they must select a Republican to serve with them on the county’s Board of Elections.

The Republican selected to fill an upcoming vacancy will help oversee next year’s presidential election. And contention over the seat has been stirring for months, since the county council voted to change the nomination process.

State law requires a minority party representative on the three-member elections board, which is responsible for setting locations of polling places and drop boxes, determining which mail ballots to accept or reject, and certifying the vote count. Even though the two Democrats on the board could outvote the Republican when making decisions, they say they’re worried about an election denier joining the board after receiving a slew of legal challenges to the 2020 election results.

Minority parties have always submitted a list of three nominees, and any disagreements over the candidates were handled behind the scenes between the parties. But under an ordinance approved in January, council can reject the minority party’s nominations and request a new list of names.

If a new slate is not provided within a month of a seat’s vacancy — or within 10 days of a list’s rejection — the new law says council can appoint a minority party member of their choosing.

Christine Reuther, a Democratic council member who won reelection last week and helped pass the change, said members were concerned that future GOP leadership could nominate election deniers — or refuse to submit more candidates after a rejection in an effort to “upend” the process.

“Our concern, quite honestly, was that we could get three people who were filing lawsuits against the county nonstop, who seemed to have no interest in figuring out how elections actually work,” Reuther said

But GOP chair Frank Agovino called the law a “partisan power grab,” one that could make the nomination process unfair to whichever party holds power in the future.

“The way it reads, it looks like they can basically just keep requesting new lists,” Agovino said. “So the power of the minority chairman really doesn’t exist any longer.”

Agovino and the county GOP filed a lawsuit against Delaware County this summer over the ordinance.

The complaint alleges that the new process violates Pennsylvania state election code, which offers specific rules for how counties with home-rule charters — including Delaware County — nominate election officials. The GOP went as far as seeking an injunction against council in September.

The county, responding to the complaint in a court filing, said that Agovino has no standing, and that the chairman “can only speculate as to who, in fact, will nominate a minority member to the Board of Elections when a vacancy opens.”

While Delaware County leaders did not make election integrity central to their campaigns this year — unlike in Bucks County — they said they’ve received a host of unsubstantiated legal challenges over their handling of the last presidential election.

In all, the county fended off 15 lawsuits alleging fraud in its vote counting methods, spending hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars to contest the filings.

Many of those challenges were brought by people who echoed former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was unfairly stolen from him and that Pennsylvania’s mail voting laws enabled voter fraud

A judge has yet to deliver a ruling on the Delaware County Republicans’ lawsuit over the appointment process.

But both Reuther and Agovino said separately that they would support John McBlain, the current Republican election board member for another two-year term.

Council appointed McBlain, a former Delaware County council member and solicitor, in 2021. McBlain said he would be happy to continue should Republicans nominate him.

“I’m watching out for the minority party, but to me, the most important part is assuring the public that we are conducting free and fair elections in Delaware County,” McBlain said. “I won’t hesitate if I see a problem to call it out, but at the same time, I’m not there as some kind of denier.”

Citing his record as a Republican watchdog, McBlain said he pushed for the county not to count 400 mail ballots that postal workers delivered to the election office late, after polls closed on election night in 2021.

Democratic election officials eventually sided with him, he said.

“John McBlain is someone who I’m gonna disagree with on a great many policy issues, but we both have the same factual understanding of how elections are conducted,” Reuther said. “He doesn’t see conspiracy theories every time you turn around.”

Agovino said he would support McBlain for another term, and that “several” other people are also interested.

Council will convene in early January to appoint the board members.