The Pennsylvania Secretary of State is taking action against the county elections office.
On Monday, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt sent a letter to Lancaster County commissioners saying county election workers had given “an inaccurate description of Pennsylvania law” to voters that misled them about their eligibility to cast a ballot in this year’s general election.
The letter also indicated that Secretary Schmidt had reason to believe the county had delayed recording some voter registration applications into a state database until Monday, which deprived voters of their legal right to challenge any rejections. He wrote that some of those applications had been submitted as far back as September.
Secretary Schmidt demanded that county commissioners “immediately investigate these matters and compel the elections office to properly adjudicate all registration applications in compliance with Pennsylvania law.” Schmidt verified details of cases of three county residents, including a student at Franklin & Marshall College who said the county elections office had temporarily removed his Pennsylvania voter registration because he was also registered in Connecticut.
Laura Medvic, college registrar and co-chair of the nonpartisan F&M Votes campaign, said Chief Deputy Clerk Lisa Dart had told students they could not register until they provided proof that their registrations in their home states had been canceled.
The student claims that Dart told him to contact Connecticut officials to cancel his registration there before his Pennsylvania registration could be reactivated.
“The further change of this particular voter’s record to a ‘On-Hold’ status was also without any basis under law and effectively operated as a rejection for purposes of voter registration and voting,” Schmidt wrote in his letter to county commissioners.
Medvic said that 260 students registered through the program this year, and as many as 30% of those registrations had not been acted on as of Saturday. Registrations had been submitted as early as September 13th.
“I’m deeply disappointed that it has been so difficult for so many of our students to exercise their right to register to vote,” Medvic said. “As Secretary Schmidt’s letter notes, a significant number of the students’ applications were languishing until today.”
Experts raise the point that since the 2020 election, many grassroots groups sprang into existence, formed by concerned members of the public for oversight of their election officials, state laws, and administrative procedures.
