Philly Leader

Philadelphia commissioner Al Schmidt has refused to answer questions posed by the Philly Leader on the integrity of elections in light of poll watchers being disallowed at certain voting sites. 

The city has reported satellite polling places are not open to poll watchers. 

Poll watchers are often deployed by political parties to ensure a non-partisan voting process.  In certain cases voters can be challenged by those positioned at polling stations. The integrity of flagged votes is then properly investigated by election authorities. 

The issue came to a forefront in the wake of President Donald Trump’s encouragement of more widespread poll watching efforts. 

Trump said during the first presidential debate last month that poll watchers were blocked from observing the first day of early voting in Philadelphia.

“In Philadelphia they went in to watch,” Trump said at the end of the debate. “They’re called poll watchers. A very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren’t allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.” 

City officials told the Philadelphia Inquirer there were several reasons why they weren’t allowed. They cited COVID-19, that no actual polling places in the city were open and that Trump had no poll watchers approved to work in the city. The city noted that poll watchers don’t have the same rights when it comes to satellite election offices as traditional polling places.

States allow both campaigns and parties to appoint poll watchers in each precinct. The city said in the Philadelphia Inquirer article that neither Trump’s campaign, nor the Republican Party or other Republican campaigns had certified poll watchers yet.

However, at least one woman who said she was a Trump campaign poll watcher was not allowed to enter a satellite office in the Overbrook section of West Philadelphia.

In July, the Trump campaign filed a complaint in federal court against both state and county election officials in Pittsburgh. The complaint accused them of “the arbitrary and illegal preclusion of poll watchers from being present in all locations where votes are being cast,” because of the time frame regarding mail-in ballots, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.