Pattern placement imprecision due to charging of the workpiece is believed to be a significant contribution to the total positional error in electron beam lithography. In an earlier work, Liu et al. [J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 13, 1979 (1995)] reported that the surface potential of exposed resist could be negative or positive according to the resist thickness and the electron energy. In that work the authors were constrained to use a flood beam. In this study, we report a new independent approach using a Kelvin probe electrometer to measure the surface potential after exposure by a focused beam. There is a qualitative agreement with the earlier work in that the surface potential tends to be less positive at lower electron energies and for thicker resists. We observed positive surface potentials at 10 and 20 keV beam irradiation. This positive charging is much more evident in polybutene sulfone than in UV5.