Pennsylvania ballot-box stuffing conspiracy theory is false
By: KDKA-TV's Seth Kaplan
HARRISBURG, Pa. (KDKA) — Three mail-in ballot boxes in Centre County – home to State College – already had a total 18 of mail-in ballots inside them when the official period to return ballots began.
What happened?
"There were a few folks who were a bit too eager to get their voted and secure mail-in or absentee ballots into our drop boxes," said Michael Pipe (D), the county's commission chair and chair of its election board.
Because they were returned improperly, the ballots couldn't count. But Pipe said county election workers have been getting in touch with the voters in question so they can vote properly. And he said the office is tweaking its procedures to reduce the chance of confusion in the future.
And that was that. Until it wasn't.
"Pennsylvania Ballot Box Seems *PRE-LOADED* with ballots!!" read a headline on Rumble, a conservative social media site. At least one other site published similar claims.
Independent fact-checkers found the sites were correct about the presence of the too-early ballots but not about the idea that someone had done something nefarious.
Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), who chairs the Pennsylvania House's Government Affairs Committee, accepts the idea that it was an honest mistake. But he blames liberals for the conspiracy theory.
The mistakes and conspiracy theories are "exactly what you get from unmonitored drop boxes – or drop boxes, period," said Grove, who opposes the presence in some counties of as many as dozens of drop boxes for voters to drop mail-in ballots day and night.
As with a lot else in Pennsylvania, the availability of drop boxes varies widely from county to county. Delaware County – small in geography compared to most and with about a half-million residents – has 40 ballot return sites, more than any other.
Sprawling Allegheny County, with more than a million residents, has just one. So do many smaller counties. Centre County, with about 150,000 residents, has nine, including the three where voters inadvertently dropped ballots too early.
Grove and other Republicans favor addressing a host of election issues – including polarizing ones like requiring photo ID to vote and limiting drop boxes – in one broad election bill.
Democrats, including outgoing Governor Tom Wolf, favor first addressing only uncontroversial issues, such as allowing election offices to begin opening mail-in ballot envelopes prior to election day, which could facilitate faster results.
Restricting drop boxes would be "an easy way to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat," Grove said. "And that's all we've been asking for two years with the Wolf administration. Had he come to the table, maybe some of the stuff gets fixed and we don't have that incident (in Centre County)" and the related conspiracy theories.
Nonsense, say Wolf administration officials.
"While pushing legislation that would only disenfranchise voters, Rep. Grove continues to amplify misinformation," said Elizabeth Rementer, a spokesperson for the governor. "By falsely linking safe, secure drop boxes with this legislation, he is only further causing confusion, not stopping it."
Democrats say photo ID requirements and restrictions on early voting disproportionately inconvenience and thus disenfranchise minority voters.
"Instead of pointing fingers and trying to push his own agenda that included disenfranchising voters, the representative and his colleagues are urged to actively debunk and stop spreading misinformation," Rementer said.
