Why your vote for Lehigh County commissioner is important
In Pennsylvania, one of county government’s most important functions is carrying out our annual elections. They handle voter registration; hire and manage poll workers; reserve polling locations; decide drop box policy; tabulate votes; and communicate election results. County election professionals are the backbone of our democracy and front-line heroes in ensuring every voter, whether by mail or in-person, can shape the future of their community, state and country.
Following Donald Trump’s complete and utterly unsubstantiated claim that the election was stolen through widespread fraud, county elections have taken on a new meaning. Election deniers and other candidates casting doubt on the legitimacy of the last presidential election are seeking county commissioner seats.
According to Vote Beat Pennsylvania, 18 commissioners who have aligned with the “big lie” or cast doubt on 2020’s results, will almost certainly govern their counties next year. They will have the power to directly oversee the election process, openly question results and further erode trust in our democratic process just by virtue of holding a position of power.
In Lehigh County, two such candidates should raise concerns in the upcoming election for county commissioner.
Paul Moat, a Republican, has expressed doubts about the 2020 election. On his Facebook page, on Nov. 7, 2020, he shared Trump’s official campaign statement where the former president laid the foundation of his baseless accusation of electoral fraud in which he stated Joe Biden wanted to count “fraudulent, manufactured ballots.”
If Moat were to win in November, he would be in a position of power to directly comment on the 2024 election results in Lehigh County, where Trump is very likely to be the Republican nominee. He could potentially elevate future accusations of fraud and election theft and erode the public’s trust.
Jacqueline Rivera should be cause for equal concern among voters, regardless of party. In
2021, Rivera joined with several other voters in Lehigh County and America First Legal, a right-wing advocacy organization founded by Trump’s former policy adviser Stephen Miller, to sue Lehigh County over its use of drop boxes.
Among their asks were that the drop boxes be surveilled, and the county government center drop box no longer be available 24/7. The lawsuit and calls to monitor the drop boxes were met with widespread opposition. An earlier approach by District Attorney
Jim Martin, who placed detectives at county drop boxes, was condemned by the American
Civil Liberties Union, League of Women Voters, Disability Rights Pennsylvania and 19 other organizations.
The potential for this lawsuit to imperil the ability of residents to vote was so severe that the Alliance for Retired Americans petitioned the court to intervene, stating that if the lawsuit was successful it could be “ruinous for the Alliance and its members” and that drop boxes “are critical for voters … who are unable to vote in person because of disability, scheduling conflicts, lack of transportation, or other hardship, and who cast their ballot too late to rely on postal delivery.”
In its petition, the alliance stated that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were looking to co-opt the election board to implement their own preferred policies at the expense of voters. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed by Lehigh County Judge Thomas Capehart, who acknowledged Lehigh County was following state law and was taking necessary steps to ensure the boxes were being used properly. Lawsuits like these are becoming increasingly common and part of a systematic campaign to erode faith in our elections and spread misinformation about drop boxes’ reliability and security, according to the progressive group Democracy Docket.
Rivera states on her campaign website that she will “defend election integrity” without any definition. Statements like these have severe consequences for our democracy: Vote Beat Pennsylvania finds that groups that have pushed false narratives about electoral fraud often use this term as a catchall for widespread cheating, without further definition. Just the presence of that statement can contribute to widespread distrust in our elections.
The Republicans could potentially win a majority of county commissioner seats, which would give Moat and Rivera significant power and sway over our elections, determining the availability of drop boxes, maintaining faith in our democratic process, and controlling the budget for election operations.
I strongly encourage county voters to support the Democratic slate, not because of party ideology, but because of our most basic civic principle, voting. The stakes around trust in our elections are too high, and we deserve to have faith that the board will be allies in strengthening our democracy, supporting voter access, and ensuring everyone trusts our election results.
I firmly believe that slate will be stewards of our democracy, support election staff and poll workers and expand access to voting.