Saturday was a rough day for some Delaware Valley voters and and Republican Party workers.
The Montgomery County Republican Headquarters was forced to close Saturday after a phone call at 11:07 a.m. threatening to bomb it.
The incident is one of an increasing number of threats, violence, and acts of intimidation against GOP candidates, offices, and staff this cycle. These come on top of two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump — including one in Butler, Pa.
In Bucks County on Saturday voters at the Doylestown and Quakertown election centers were reportedly turned away after waiting, some for two hours, to cast an early vote.
Mary Varillo and her husband, Dominic, arrived at the Quakertown satellite office at 1:15 and were turned away by a sheriff’s deputy. The center was supposed to be open until 2 p.m. and a line of people was waiting at the building to get in.
Varillo said they are determined to vote.
“We will make sure we do vote,” she said. “We’ll get our votes in somehow. I was just surprised and disappointed.”
Daria Wilson wrote on Facebook that she drove to the Quakertown location and “had my 81-year-old mother who lives in Sellersville with me. We showed up at 1:30 p.m. and were told by a Bucks County sheriff that the line was closed and the time was 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., not 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. like the Vote.pa states on their site. Total complete insanity!!! This is not even right! Oh, and to top it off, they had Democratic reps there telling us this information and the site was wrong. They are trying to cheat even more now and I refuse to allow it.”
Also on Facebook, Bucks County GOP Chair Pat Poprik said that Vote.pa is not affiliated with the county government or the Republican Party. The site corrected the times, but had the wrong time listed all week prior to Saturday, she said.
On Sept. 6, a GOP staffer in Erie County received death threats from a Philadelphia man who said, “Your days are numbered, B***h!”
On Oct. 10, individuals forcibly entered the Delaware County Republican headquarters, threatened to kill staff, and blocked them from exiting the building.
On Oct. 17, many individuals associated with the GOP received an anonymous letter, which stated: “Should your candidate win…we know where you live, you are in the database. In the dead of a cold winter’s night, this year, or next and beyond, there is no knowing what may happen. Your property, your family may be impacted…”
“You tread on me at your peril, motherf****r. We look forward to visiting in the future.”
All incidents have been reported to local police departments and Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Election Integrity Task Force, as well as the FBI. In the meantime, Chairman Lawrence Tabas, of the Republican Party insists the party’s efforts will be undeterred.
“Nothing will stop us from working to elect those who will put our country back on track,” said Tabas. “And there should be unanimous agreement that political violence has no place in our elections, especially after an innocent Butler County husband and father lost his life to political violence. We emphatically urge Pennsylvanians to voice their opinions by voting, not violence and intimidation.”
Todd Shepherd in Broad + Liberty reported that Vote.pa, a Democratic-affiliated website, was caught earlier this year harvesting the personal data of people who used it in order to send partisan political messages. While the website might appear official, in small print it says it is part of Commonwealth Communications, a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit run by J.J. Abbott, Governor Tom Wolf’s former press secretary turned political operative.
Republican activists say they are urging voters to make their voices heard, whatever the obstacles.
“We have to remain vigilant,” Poprik said. “We have to vote.”
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