'Big Lie' chases Pa. election workers from their jobs, could delay vote counts
Rep. Matthew Bradford November 4, 2022 | 5:09 PM
NORRISTOWN, Nov. 4 – State Rep. Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, condemned threats against Pennsylvania’s election workers fueled by elected officials and right-wing media repeating the “big lie” about the 2020 election. These threats have already led to county directors and deputy directors choosing to leave their jobs in more than half of the commonwealth’s 67 counties.
“The fallout of January 6th continues to reverberate in Pennsylvania. This attack on our democracy is ongoing, and we know elected officials in this Commonwealth have encouraged this,” Bradford said. "We have an opportunity to get the facts and the majority has refused to even discuss it. Hiding from the truth will only allow this problem to fester.”
Bradford said Bloomberg News reported the state has lost more than 600 years in combined election administration experience thanks to workers leaving the job fearing for their own safety or the safety of their families. County offices get incessant threats and public meetings are overwhelmed with protestors repeating long-debunked lies. With the count of vote-by-mail ballots already delayed due to Republicans refused to vote on bills that would allowing counties to prepare vote-by-mail ballots for counting, so the loss of workers could lead to longer delays in getting votes counted, which extremists used in 2020 as an excuse to demand the vote counting be stopped while Trump and other Republicans were in the lead.
Recently Republican lawmakers have repeated the lies, including Rep. Dan Moul, R-Adams, claiming he had seen “government footage from cameras mounted on government buildings with people walking up to drop boxes at 3, 4 o’clock in the morning with handfuls of ballots and shoving them in,” and when pressed for details, he told reporters to watch a thoroughly debunked conspiracy movie.
House Minority Leader Joanna McClinton requested the House Government Oversight Committee on which Bradford serves as minority chair investigate this claim and other claims, but the Republican chairman of the committee refused to bring up the matter – instead choosing to repeat more lies.
In addition to Bradford, the House Government Oversight Committee includes Republican Chairman Ryan McKenzie, and Reps. Johnathan Hershey, Jim Rigby, John Lawrence and Todd Stephens, Jordan Harris, Dan Miller and Michael Schlossberg.