As primary looms, Delaware elections board has not met in months

Why Should Delaware Care?
The Delaware Board of Elections, created to ensure election security and fairness in the First State, has not met since last fall. With the primary election a month away, questions remain about how the group will conduct its oversight duties while not regularly holding meetings.

​With Delaware’s midterm primary elections just more than a month away, the state’s board of elections — tasked with ensuring election fairness and security — has not met since last November.

Each of the board’s monthly meetings this year have been canceled, citing membership vacancies that a Department of Elections spokesperson said prevent the oversight board from convening. 

Those vacancies, the spokesperson said, were caused by three board member deaths between December 2025 and April 2026. And while the spokesperson said Gov. Matt Meyer is “actively working” with the state Democratic Party to fill the vacant seats, she did not provide more information about the recruitment process or why it has taken upward of eight months to find new board members. 

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the governor’s office said the public could expect “significant movement” on filling the vacancies within the next week. 

But as Delaware voters prepare to head to the polls next month in what is likely to be one of the least competitive midterm election cycles in a decade, it remains unclear how state election regulators are working to ensure election integrity.

The board’s absence also has caught the attention of state Republican Party leaders. The party’s Vice Chair Daniel Willis called out the lack of board meetings on social media.

In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, Willis admonished Democrats for failing to fill the board’s vacancies. 

“If the Democrats can’t do such a simple task of just bringing your people on, doing your damn job, that’s a red flag,” Willis said. “And if Republicans, if we can’t advocate for voters and say, ‘Hey, listen, this is something bad,’ then we’re useless. I’m not going to be useless.”

Multiple vacant seats

The Delaware Board of Elections is a bipartisan group that oversees, governs and regulates how elections are administered across the state. The board works alongside the state’s Department of Elections, which conducts the day-to-day operations of running elections and is led by the election commissioner. 

The board consists of 10 members — five Democrats and five Republicans — appointed by the governor, along with the state’s election commissioner. 

The appointed members also are divvied up geographically, with two coming from each county, two coming from the city of Wilmington, and two seats designated for at-large representatives. 

Of the three member deaths, two were Democratic board members – one in Kent County and the other in New Castle. 

Those two Democratic seats, which became vacant in December 2025 and April 2026, respectively, remain unfilled. 

The third vacancy, a Republican from Kent County who also died in December, was filled in March, the Department of Elections spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said Gov. Meyer’s office is working with the state Democratic party to fill the two vacancies, but did not say more about that process. 

The Delaware Democratic Party Chair, Evelyn Brady, did not return a request for comment Tuesday afternoon. 

Maintaining party balance?

Despite the remaining vacancies, the 11-member board of elections has never lost quorum, or the minimum number of members needed to conduct official business. The in-tact quorum raises questions about the decision to repeatedly cancel meetings since the top of the year.

The Department of Elections spokesperson pointed to a specific section of state law to explain the cancelations, saying that it requires the board to maintain a “required balance of party affiliation.”

That law, Section 202(a) of Chapter 15 of the Delaware Code, says Democrats and Republicans must be represented on the board of elections “at all times” by no less than five members. 

It does not explicitly say whether the board can hold meetings with an uneven number of Democrats and Republicans. 

The code also includes specific exceptions for when the board can meet while attempting to fill vacancies. According to state law, the board can still meet to canvass, or certify, election results even when there are vacancies, as long as a quorum of board members are present. 

Should the current Democratic vacancies persist into September, it is unclear whether the board will meet to certify the results of this year’s primary election. 

Tim Carlin contributed to this report.