Swing States 2024
Politics

Pennsylvania Democrats quietly change website page recruiting poll watchers after GOP called out ‘disinformation’

Pennsylvania Democrats quietly updated their website Thursday night after Republicans accused them of publishing “misinformation” on the site’s recruitment page, which appeared to be enlisting out-of-state poll watchers in violation of the battleground state’s election law.

The Republican National Committee sent a letter to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt earlier in the day Thursday, pointing out that the Pennsylvania Dems’ “Voter Protection” page on their website said that poll watchers on Election Day “must be physically present in PA for their shift, but do not necessarily have to be PA voters.”

That language contradicted Pennsylvania going bac💞k to 1937, which stat🍷es, “Each watcher so appointed must be a qualified registered elector of the county in which the election district for which the watcher was appointed is located.”

PA Dems volunteer page before it was changed Thursday night. padems

“The misinformation on the PA Dems’ website threatens the integrity of November’s general election,” the RNC’s letter to Schmidt reads, explaining that the Democratic Party cannot be allowed to “flood polling places with unqualified out-of-state poll watchers.”

The Pennsylvania Department of State told The Post that poll watchers are “specifically defined as individua😼ls appointed by candidates or political partiesꦓ to observe inside a polling place on Election Day,” not outside.

Pennsylvania Secretary of Commonwealth, Al Schmidt. Amber South/Public Opinion / USA TODAY NETWORK

In other words, Pennsylvania poll watchers must not only be Pennsylvania voters, but they can also only serve in the in t🌊he county they a🌸re registered to vote. 

That’s a far cry from what Pennsylvania Democrats were telling potential volunteers, thus sparking Republicans’ complaints of “misinformation.”

In a statement❀ to The Post on Friday, the Pennsylvania Dems clapped back at their Republican opponents.

“Our Party takes our democracy seriously, unlike the MAGA Republicans that are busy launching bad faith attacks on voters and our volunteers,” said Mitch Kates, PA Dems’ Executive Director.

“Poll watchers may be located inside or outside of polling locations, and outside poll watchers can be volunteers from any state,” Kates said. “We have always ma🌠de this distinction in assigning our volunteers on Election Day.”

Election bureau staffer Deb McDonald opening provisional ballots in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. AP

But P♛ennsylvania Democrats didn’t make this distinction on their – until it was changed Thursdayಌ night.

Still, the Republicans are urging Schmidt, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, to correct the PA Democrats’ “misinformation and disinformation” on the state’s “” page, and order them to “cease and desist” from publishing inaccurate election information.

Both Democrats and Republicans recruit volunteers from out of state, and both parties are recruiting armies of volunteers to monitor polling places to make sure their team’s ballots are counted, and contest questionable ballots on the opposing side.

An Emerson poll released Thursday showed Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump tied at 48% support in the Keystone State.