(Headline USA) Three far-left anti-integrity activists in northeastern Pennsylvania county launched a lawfare suit on Tuesday to overturn a local official’s announcement that she will prevent all four of its dropboxes from being deployed for use by those voting by mail and absentee ballot in the Nov. 5 election.
The lawsuit in Luzerne County argues county manager Romilda Crocamo lacks authority for statements made last month that the county would not use dropboxes “because of purported safety and security concerns.”
The plaintiffs who sued said the Luzerne County Board of Elections and Registration planned to deploy four dropboxes, as it has in other recent elections. The board in February voted down a proposal to eliminate all dropboxes, their lawsuit stated
The lawsuit accused Crocamo of violating state election law and claimed her policy would “lead to irreparable harm to the voting rights” in Luzerne.
The activists want a county judge to stop Crocamo from implementing her decision.
In an email seeking comment, Crocamo wrote Tuesday: “I do not engage in public comment during litigation.”
Messages seeking comment were left with two of the five members of the Elections and Registration Board, which also is a defendant in the case.
Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement Crocamo had no authority for what he called an “end run around the board of elections’ decision to continue offering Luzerne County county voters a safe and easy option to vote by mail, and we hope the court will quickly restore the four drop boxes.”
The plaintiffs, including the activist group In This Together NEPA Inc., claimed there were no substantiated cases of abuse or fraud involving dropboxes in Luzerne County. They said the dropboxes have been monitored by camera.
The Times Leader of Wilkes–Barre reported Tuesday that Crocamo has said she does have the authority—as part of her duty to oversee personnel and the security of county-owned properties.
Many see the Keystone State as being, perhaps, the most important battleground of the 2024 race. In order to secure the Electoral College, former President Donald Trump would need only to retain the states he won in 2020, as well as regain Pennsylvania and Georgia from his 2016 victory map.
Georgia, which closed many of the election loopholes that Democrats exploited in 2020 to upend the election process there and flip the state, is a more certain victory for Republicans.
According to the RealClearPolitics average as of Wednesday, Pennsylvania appeared to be a dead heat, with both candidates polling at 48.2% on average. However, the state is likely to see election night shenanigans, as it did in 2020, that will reverse a substantial Trump victory through the use of mail-in ballots received after deadline.
Many of those were reported to have come under suspicious circumstances, including Jesse Morgan, a postal worker who swore under oath to having transported a shipment of completed ballots from New York to Philadelphia, only to see his freight mysteriously vanish.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
