CARLISLE, Pa. — An email sent to Cumberland County last Tuesday raised concerns over election security, county commissioners said.
The email, sent to Bureau of Elections Director Bethany Salzarulo, requested specific security details for ballots and voting machines in the county, including the address and room number where ballots are stored, as well as the names of people who have access to the ballots.
The email requested the information by the following day, Wednesday.
Though sent from a Gmail address, the Trump campaign confirmed one of their volunteers sent the email.
On Nov. 3, the Trump campaign's deputy national press secretary Thea McDonald wrote FOX43 in an email,
"As part of the Trump campaign’s efforts to ensure a free and fair election, we have asked county clerks for information so that we can gain a detailed understanding of voting processes—and the similarities and differences that may exist in different jurisdictions. Given that more than 500,000 mail ballots were tossed out in this year’s primaries, we must look into these critical issues. The information we’ve asked for includes standard election transparency details, and election officials should have the answers on hand. When did transparency become a bad thing?”"
“I have found that request to be very, very suspicious,” County Commissioner Jean Foschi said at a Board of Commissioners meeting Nov. 2.
“The timing of the request, the email, was quite suspicious,” added County Commissioner Vince DiFilippo.
Cumberland County commissioners have not yet responded to the request.
State election officials agreed that doing so could have posed a security risk.
“No county should ever provide election security information to any third party, ever,” said Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar.
The Trump campaign stated the email asked “standard election transparency details."
But county commissioners said transparency wouldn’t require the information to be released prior to the election.
In fact, they said at the meeting that after discussing the matter with the county solicitor, they intend to treat the email as a Right-to-Know request, though the Board of Commissioners has still not officially decided whether to do that.
Releasing the information after the ballots have been securely counted would allow for transparency without allowing any risk of ballot tampering, County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger said.
“It is unusual for one of the parties with an interest in the outcome to expect to seek information of that type,” Eichelberger said. “Security information, if it's broadly shared, is no longer secure.”
The commissioners cited security concerns in their decision not to pre-canvass ballots on Election Day.
Pre-canvassing is when county election offices begin processing and scanning mail-in and absentee ballots at 7 a.m. on Election Day, rather than after 8 p.m., when the polls close. The ballots still can only be recorded in county elections databases after polls close.
The Pennsylvania Department of State has urged counties to pre-canvass this year to speed up counting of a record number of mail-in ballots. Nearly 3.1 million Pennsylvanians requested mail-in ballots, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
Cumberland County is one of a handful of counties to decide against pre-canvassing.
Pennsylvania law requires that political parties and each candidate on the ballot be allowed to send someone to observe the pre-canvassing process. Cumberland County officials said having the observers in the room with election workers would violate current COVID-19 gathering limits. In order to accommodate the larger number of people, the ballots would need to be moved to a larger facility.
“Certainly what was in that email was part of the decision to not move those ballots, to interfere with the chain of control of those ballots,” Foschi said.
Sec. Boockvar said she had reached out to other counties but was not aware of any other county receiving the email.
The Department of State has contacted the FBI to further investigate the situation, she said.