A poll watcher bill sponsored by a Republican Pennsylvania State Senator who “posted debunked [2020 election fraud] disinformation on his Facebook page more than 100 times” passed Monday along party lines.
Gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano’s bill removes county residency requirements and increases the number of poll watchers a candidate can have from two to three.
READ: PA Republicans Pushing Constitutional Amendment To Control Women’s Bodies
“It does nothing to increase access to voting and is just one more attempt by the lawmaker — who has repeatedly sought to undermine the integrity of our election process — to encourage voter intimidation,” said Elizabeth Rementer, Gov. Tom Wolf’s press secretary.
Rementer’s observation shouldn’t be dismissed as just a partisan response. Politico dropped a bombshell report June 1, “‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections,” which reveals the GOP’s plans to weaponize operatives as poll workers and deploy them to key swing states — states like Pennsylvania – to challenge voters and results in upcoming elections.
And as the New York Times reminded us last year, “During the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump’s campaign repeatedly promoted its “army” of poll watchers as he publicly implored supporters to venture into heavily Black and Latino cities and hunt for voter fraud.”
Mastriano’s bill now goes to the Republican-controlled House, where another party-line vote can be expected in its favor.
The cartoon above was created by DonkeyHotey for WhoWhatWhy from these Creative Commons licensed images: Donald Trump (DonkeyHotey / Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0), marchers (Rae Allen / Flickr – CC BY 2.0), rifles (Teknorat / Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0) and flags (Elvert Barnes / Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0).
