What having election deniers on this year’s ballot means for November and beyond | Analysis

In recent years, election discussions in the commonwealth have centered around Act 77, a 2019 bipartisan election reform bill that allowed for no-excuse mail-in voting. At the time, no one foresaw a global pandemic and the resulting popularity of mail-in voting, particularly among Democratic voters.

While county officials were overwhelmingly in favor of allowing mail-in voting, they didn’t get their wish to pre-canvass those ballots prior to Election Day.

Election workers preferred to pre-canvass ballots – the administrative process of verifying voters’ signatures and information, removing the verified ballots from their envelopes and having them ready to be counted – weeks ahead of Election Day. Instead, counties were forced to wait until 7 a.m. on Election Day to begin the process, meaning the processing and counting of mail-in ballots would take days in more densely populated areas like Philadelphia – which ultimately left the door open for Trump and his allies to falsely claim that the election was being stolen from him.

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Lisa Schaefer, executive director of the state’s County Commissioners Association, said she spoke with the media, legislators and the public many times before the election to acknowledge the potential for delays given the number of mail-in ballots that needed to be counted.

“It’s probably going to cause a lot of confusion when those numbers begin to change,” Schaefer told City & State. “And that was one of those times where it didn’t feel all that good to be able to say, ‘I told you so.’”

Despite the former president’s claims, no evidence has surfaced of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that would have affected the results, and his repeated attempts to dispute the election in the courts have failed.

The Trump campaign has lost at least 63 lawsuits filed since the 2020 presidential election contesting the processes and vote counts. His team and the Republican National Committee were granted an injunction against the secretary of state to prevent extending the proof of ID period by three days, which included a small number of ballots.

But now, Pennsylvania Republican candidates for governor and the U.S. House are among the chief promoters of election conspiracies and fraud claims. Congressional candidates Jim Bognet and Aaron Bashir have denied the election results throughout their campaigns.

Incumbent U.S. Reps. Dan Meuser, Scott Perry, Lloyd Smucker, John Joyce, Guy Reschenthaler, Glenn Thompson and Mike Kelly have also denied the results and were among the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn Trump’s election loss, thus disenfranchising countless Pennsylvanians.

And state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor, attempted to audit the state’s election results and spent thousands of dollars in campaign funds to bus protestors to the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C. that preceded the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Following the fraud falsehoods

The foundation for Trump’s “Big Lie” came well before the 2020 election. Leading up to November, he laid the groundwork by attempting to dispel the security of mail-in ballots. Many of Trump’s allies and supporters ran with it, and conspiracies involving more votes being cast than there are voters, dead voters casting ballots, and suitcases full of fraudulent ballots being brought into election facilities became rampant on right-wing social media and other platforms.

Ashley Johnson, senior policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said election fraud claims became even harder to combat compared to other conspiracies because they were being supported by lawmakers in a major party.

“One of the major problems that I think is fueling misinformation is the fact that it is being legitimized by a minority of political figures or people running for office,” Johnson said. “That sort of legitimizing factor can draw in people who may not have otherwise been drawn in by misinformation, or potentially even radicalized by misinformation, because they trust these figures.”

Schmidt said dispelling false election fraud claims is like playing a game of “Whac-a-Mole,” as the conspiracy theories continue to pop up and gain online supporters despite others having been debunked.

“I have no doubt that many of the people who have been deceived by these lies love America, and I have no doubt they care about election integrity every bit as much as I do,” Schmidt said. “But they sure don’t love democracy when their candidate loses.”

Trump, Mastriano and others aren’t entirely wrong about the need for election security. There were a handful of instances where ballots came into question in the commonwealth, but they were handled in the legal process and no evidence of widespread voter fraud was found. The Associated Press found 26 potential cases of voter fraud in Pennsylvania during 2020, and the Department of State has confirmed at least four convictions.

County officials have affirmed that mail-in voting is a safe and secure method of casting a ballot. Robert Harvie Jr., chair of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners, said his county was hypervigilant in 2020, knowing the ramifications of the election. When two mail-in ballots raised questions, the situation was resolved without issue.

“We took a lot of steps to make sure that we were being very transparent, that we were dotting all the I’s and crossing every T – we understood that if there were any questions about our election results, it could have national implications,” Harvie, a Democrat, said.

He said two mail-in ballots were submitted by children of parents who had passed away in the time between when they received their ballots and Election Day, but the records were caught in the state department’s database.

“Both of those envelopes were flagged because the person whose name was on the ballot passed away. We don’t even know who those votes were cast for because we’ve never gotten to the point where we opened the envelopes,” Harvie said. “That’s an example of the system working.”

Even in Republican strongholds where many continue to question the security of mail-in ballots and dropboxes, GOP officials City & State spoke to said they have faith in the system.

When Mastriano began what he called his “forensic investigation” of the 2020 election, he sent requests to Tioga, Philadelphia and York counties for access to their voting machines. Tioga’s three Republican county commissioners denied his request, citing the likely cost to replace the machines if they were to comply.

One of the three commissioners, Roger Bunn, told City & State that misinformation could be combatted if more people knew how the system worked. While raising concerns about Act 77, he said, “I have all the faith in the world in the system at the local level, except maybe the mail-in ballots in how they get to the ballot box.”

And despite arguing for reforms related to the security of mail-in voting, Bunn, a Republican, said election officials seem to agree that allowing pre-canvassing would go a long way toward improving the efficiency of elections. “The more we get done ahead of time, the better off we are,” he said.

The Republican-controlled General Assembly has brought up pre-canvassing measures since the election, but they’ve been packaged with other types of election reforms such as expanding voter ID requirements and limiting drop boxes, which led to the legislation being vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

Although counties like Philadelphia will likely see fewer mail-in ballots when compared to 2020 numbers, officials fear the continued election denials on behalf of some candidates and the expected delay in results could mean a return of lies, litigation and candidates refusing to accept results.

Nervous for November

The evolution of election fraud claims and Republican voters’ willingness to support candidates who amplify them has worried officials for some time. Many Republican voters outraged by the thought of election fraud have taken their claims and sharp criticism to local election boards, causing many officials and poll workers to step down or retire rather than face threats and harassment.

“People get very angry when they think there’s something wrong with the way democracy works – and that means our counties are getting very angry calls – threats of violence, even,” Schaefer said. “We’ve seen probably half, if not more, of our counties lose election directors and top election staff over the last three years.”

Couple the institutional knowledge and experience going out the door with increasing pressure from officials and voters on election officials, and the potential for mishaps and further distrust in the election system grows.

Harrison Cann is a reporter for City & State Pa., where this story first appeared.