
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called out the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners, calling its statement regarding concerns about Franklin & Marshall College students registering to vote “fraudulent” and its actions “illegal.”
Commissioners on Monday Josh Parsons AND Ray D’Agostino was is critical of media reports on this matterand also with Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt who wrote a letter to the Board demanding that the Board investigate claims that F&M students are not registered to vote.
Parsons, chairman of the Board, said: article from LNP | Lancaster on the Internet was “obviously false.” We can prove it in court.
“It is true that you can be registered in two jurisdictions. That makes sense, right? The only thing you can’t do is mess with the law in two jurisdictions. If you live in Pennsylvania now, you must live in Pennsylvania.
“So these are false claims,” he continued. “Which have basically been characterized as voter suppression. This has resulted in the use of inflammatory and threatening language directed at the county.”
In 1979, the United States Supreme Court in its 1979 case affirmed the right of students to register at the school they attend, Symm v. USA
D’Agostino, one of two Republicans on the board along with the chairman Josh Parsonssaid in a statement to the LNP that the electoral office considered applications from F&M students in the same way as others.
“All this has been clearly proven and we have confirmed it in the case of F&M as well,” D’Agostino wrote. “It is disappointing that the Secretary sent a letter repeating false and misleading information after we had already spoken with the department.”
Commissioner Alice Yoderthe only Democrat on the three-person board, the county elections director said Krystyna Miller has been working in recent days to resolve outstanding election applications submitted by the college.
Yoder also said the elections office would not ask for prior registration information, even though the district’s official statement suggested continuing that policy.
“The party line presented by the county commissioners and the electoral commission is unfair,” he said Witold Walczaklegal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “District election authorities have placed fences in front of eligible voters, either intentionally or due to incompetence. We have spoken to many people who say that election staff in Lancaster discouraged or prevented them from registering because they were registered elsewhere or did not have the ID that election officials required. Several of these people then left and failed to register in another state. They wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t been told.”
President of the university Barbara Altmann she also objected to county commissioners who, in a written statement, alleged that F&M officials gave students incorrect information about Pennsylvania’s voting requirements.
“The College and F&M Votes understand the law,” Altmann said, “and we provide our students with nothing but accurate information about voter registration and voting processes.”
“At least one voter who was already registered in the district was removed from active status when he attempted to obtain an absentee ballot,” Walczak said. “It was illegal. There is also digital history confirming that Lancaster took this illegal action and when he did it. Fortunately, this voter is already registered (as of yesterday) following media coverage and support from the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
“We see digital traces conclusively showing that registrations submitted in mid-September are only now being entered into the system. To say they did everything is perfectly at odds with reality.”
In reference to Schmidt, Parsons criticized the Republican Secretary of the Commonwealth, who previously served as a Philadelphia city commissioner.
“This is not the action of a person who organizes elections on a non-partisan basis,” he said. “This is the activity of a political agent. As far as I know, Schmidt has never had time to visit or meet the people who actually run elections here in Lancaster County.
“He spent four years talking about how we must end misinformation and stop attacking our nonpartisan election workers. But that seems to be what he is doing here.”
Walczak responded by saying, “That said, we are currently seeing registrations being entered correctly after letters were sent to the county from the ACLU-PA and the Secretary of State pointing out their illegal behavior. We will continue to follow this process. Unfortunately, we will never know how many eligible voters who wanted to register were illegally discouraged. However, we will be able to track county registration activities in the future.
“We certainly appreciate the district taking appropriate steps to approve the registration now, but instead of gaslighting everyone and claiming they did everything right, they should admit their mistakes. Their denial raises serious concerns about why this happened in the first place and whether the county has the will to take the necessary steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
“We hope and expect that Lancaster County elections officials will quickly approve the registrations of all eligible citizens well in advance of Election Day.”