CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — There are concerns about the integrity of the election in Pennsylvania. President Donald Trump's campaign has called for recounts and filed lawsuits questioning the validity of mail-in ballots.
FOX43’s Rachel Yonkunas talked with Republican Cumberland County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger about those concerns and why he said misinformation from his party is resulting in extensive abuse being directed at elections workers.
Rachel Yonkunas: When you hear allegations of voter fraud from members of your party, the president and members of the community, what do you say to that?
Gary Eichelberger: There’s a lot of misinformation going around. People are not experts on these things so they look to different sources of information and when the sources they trust give them bad information, either intentionally or because they are passing along what they heard, it makes our job more difficult certainly. We work very hard to get information out on why our election in this case is very trustworthy and why our system is robust and they can have faith that their vote is being counted.
Rachel Yonkunas: What are some of the biggest challenges your election workers are facing because of this rhetoric?
Gary Eichelberger: Obviously, it’s discouraging to them. Our people are professionals and they have been trained. Some of them have done this for many years. They gear up for this for months and of course they’re all sworn to uphold the law and they would certainly be subject to prosecution if these types of wanton abuses were taking place. I think what we’re seeing today is an unfortunate reflection of the new reality that everything because fodder for political agendas. Just like Covid mitigation did here a few months back and continuing, now the election has become the latest political target.
Rachel Yonkunas: Counting every vote shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it has become one. What are Cumberland County officials doing to ensure voters that this is a fair and secure election?
Gary Eichelberger: We have a very robust process for counting. We are subject to the guidance that has come down from the Department of State. That at times has created some challenges because that has been shifting, understandably to the response to the uniqueness posed by Covid mitigation and the extended grace period for mail-in ballots, the extended use of mail-in ballots. It has created more challenges for us. We are more than up for the challenge. We have been planning for them for a long time and we are very confident. Our election workers are first rate. They’re honest people. They’re doing their job. They’ve done their job very well. Our counting went off very smoothly, despite some of the rhetoric that’s out there. We’re wrapping up with some of the provisional [ballots] and other things that we do every election.
Rachel Yonkunas: And some poll workers in other parts of the state, like in Philadelphia, reported receiving threats from some people. Has anything like that happened in Cumberland County?
Gary Eichelberger: Well, passions are running high, unfortunately on both sides of the aisle. We have had some unfortunately abusive behavior. There have been a few threats of physical violence, not rampant, just isolated, but enough to increase tensions and of course subjecting our workers to that is not something we’re very pleased about. Particularly when some of the misinformation we know is being ginned up intentionally, with political aims in mind.
Rachel Yonkunas: That must be very frightening, especially when there is still some work to be done. Cumberland County is still counting provisional ballots, how is that process going?
Gary Eichelberger: It’s going very well. We’re tracking fine. Our process is robust and very reliable. Our people are holding up. They’ve done an incredible job. They’ve been working incredible hours for months now because the runup to these elections is significant. We’ve done a lot of planning and have thrown more resources at it to make sure that we could do the best job possible in a very difficult situation. Certainly not perfect. We’re hoping it’s a unique situation. Considering all-in-all, election day went very smoothly despite some accusations out there by partisan leaders. We’ve had routine hiccups along the way. Problems get solved throughout the day, that’s the nature of elections so we’re pretty pleased with where things are.
Rachel Yonkunas: We certainly appreciate all the work that you and poll workers in Cumberland County are doing and I know the work continues so we do thank you for that. Is there anything else you’d like to address?
Gary Eichelberger: The only thing I’d like to add is we take the integrity of the election process very seriously. The faith in elections is one of our prime public institutions. It is not something to be trifled with lightly. Our Board of Elections, which is made up of the Commissioners, we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve delivered an even-handed election. Unfortunately, some of our party leaders here don’t feel that it should have been even-handed, and we’ve heard plenty about that. Our Republican committee here has not been real happy with our even-handedness, but we feel that’s an essential part of keeping the credibility with the public, giving them reason to trust the election result.