A Look at PA as Trumpists Try to Create a Fraud Narrative

Philadelphia suburban counties are being asked to cancel hundreds of voter mail ballot applications for what the ACLU calls mass-produced and illegal challenges. The challenges query a voter’s residence based on a supposed match with the U.S. Postal Service’s change-of-address database. via Associated Press:

Diane Houser, a supporter of former President Donald Trump who has filed more than 200 challenges in Chester County, said the challenges are nonpartisan and come from a grassroots network targeting absentee ballot applications from people who travel out of state.

But the ACLU said the challenges were illegal because voters could only be challenged on their qualifications to register to vote. Friday is the deadline for such challenges, the ACLU says. It must be based on specific evidence that a particular voter does not have the right to vote.

The ACLU said these challenges are based on the flawed premise that someone has moved out of state permanently, because change of address forms are also designed to help someone forward their mail. A person in the database may temporarily relocate for school, military service or other purposes rather than permanently relocating their residence, the ACLU wrote in a letter to counties.

Sigh. Here’s the problem. Whether through extreme binary thinking or skepticism, these True Believers challenge every step of the electoral process (thanks to right-wing operatives like Cleta Mitchell egging them on). And it’s not hard for them to make their accusations seem vile, because election laws are complex and these are people who don’t get along very well with nuance.

For example, many of these people screaming about voter suppression in Bucks County are angry because they waited until the last day to request a mail-in ballot in person; This is something they could have done online weeks ago. But it’s always about the conspiracy against the MAGAts.