For Ken Bacher, it must have felt like ‘it’s déjà vu all over again’ as he was sworn in by Vice President Paul Champagne as an appointed school board member Dec. 5.

A special session was called for all East Penn School District directors, including those whose terms hadn’t expired yet to approve Bacher’s appointment.

The Lehigh County Board of Elections has not been able to certify the November election results. This leaves reelected directors Alisa Bowman and Adam Smith, as well as newly-elected Bill Whitney and Michael Felegy without the certification necessary for them to serve at the board’s reorganization meeting scheduled Dec. 6.

According to school solicitor Marc Fisher, there is currently no timeline for the certification of the county’s election results and given the timing of Bacher’s resignation from the school board, as of Dec. 6, there would be only four seated members left. With one seat shy of a quorum, no board action can be taken.

The former board president’s resignation went into effect 12:01 a.m. Dec. 5. Bacher answered his colleagues’ call to return and serve temporarily until another quorum can be established when the new members are finally certified and sworn in.

“There are 261 mail-in ballots called into question at this point,” Dr. Joshua Levinson said. “It’s tied to one of the county judicial races.”

According to news sources, judicial candidate Republican David Ritter is contesting those 261 ballots which were received without a date written on the outer envelope. Currently, he holds a narrow lead over his opponent, Democrat Zachary Cohen.

There was no executive session and no members of the public requested to address the board.

Livestreaming of this and other board meetings is available on the district’s YouTube channel.