The large majority of counties (59 of 67) are run by a 3-member elected Board of County Commissioners combining legislative and executive power. Eight counties have adopted home-rule charters that replace this system — some (e.g. Allegheny, Erie) now have a separately elected county executive plus a multi-member council. Residents in a typical, non-charter county would attend commissioners' meetings and route records requests to the county's Right-to-Know Law open-records officer. Philadelphia is a distinct quirk worth flagging separately: it's simultaneously a city and a county with fully merged government, so Philadelphia residents have no separate county government to contact at all — specific to that one city, not a statewide pattern.