Pa. county perturbed by Trump campaign’s request for ballot security details
The Sentinel, Carlisle Election officials in one Pennsylvania county received an email Tuesday from the Trump campaign requesting highly specific details about the county’s ballot security.
The email, sent to Cumberland County officials, went so far as to ask for the address and room numbers of ballot storage locations, and asking that the information be sent to the Gmail account of a Florida-based Trump operative.
County officials said they have not responded to the request and do not intend to, according to the county commissioners.
The Trump campaign described the request as “standard election transparency details,” but local officials find the implication — that the president’s campaign staff is harvesting election security plans through what appears to be a personal web-based email account — to be extremely concerning.
“It’s almost kind of chilling the sort of data they wanted us to provide,” Cumberland County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger said. “This is basically the whole security plan. We’ve never received a request of this detail, and I find it troubling that one of the interested parties [in the election outcome] feels they have a right to information that obviously could jeopardize the security of the ballots.”
According to emails reviewed by The Sentinel, the message was from Leslie O’Shaughnessy, who said she was writing “on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President.”
The email contained an attached, bullet-pointed list of the details requested, which O’Shaughnessy described as being pursuant to “your office’s compliance with existing statutes and law.”
“Please respond to these questions no later than 5:00 pm EST, tomorrow, Wednesday, October 28, 2020,” the email stated, asking for the response to be sent to a Gmail account bearing O’Shaughnessy’s name, and also including a phone number.
That number is tied to an Orlando-area virtual learning center, as well as a personal Facebook page for O’Shaughnessy, where she identifies herself in a publicly visible post as having
“served as an appointee in the Trump Administration in Washington DC.”
Aperson whoidentified themselves as “Leslie” answered the phone number but declined to discuss their role in the email with The Sentinel.
The Trump campaign’s communications office confirmed to The Sentinel that O’Shaughnessy is a volunteer with the campaign, and offered an explanatory statement from Deputy National Press Secretary Thea McDonald.
“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,” McDonald wrote.
“Given that more than 500,000 mail ballots were tossed out in this year’s primaries, we must look into these critical issues ahead of November,” she said, linking to a Washington Post feature on the volume of vote-bymail ballots that were disqualified in the spring due to late arrivals, missing signatures, illegible marks and other reasons.
But the details O’Shaughnessy asked for in her email do not concern ballot verification; rather, they are specific physical security details for ballots and voting machines.
These include information on “the location(s) that ballots are immediately sent to when polls close (including address and room number)” as well as “the individuals who transport the ballots to the location(s).”
The campaign is also asking for “the time(s) when are ballots are transported to canvass site,” information on any security provided, and “the best point of contact for each storage location(s) of the ballots.”
Similar physical security details are asked for voting machines, as well as “If there will be any info still on the voting machines once they are stored” and “the time when any residual information is wiped.”
“The information we’ve asked for includes standard election transparency details, and election officials should have the answers on hand. Whendid transparency become a bad thing?” McDonald said in her emailed statement.
Cumberland County officials said they don’t see it that way, particularly given that Trump has spent months baselessly suggesting that the election will be compromised, particularly because of mail-in ballots. Trump has also suggested he will seek to use the court system to have ballots thrown out during the counting process in the days following Nov. 3.
The campaign has been particularly aggressive in Pennsylvania, filming ballot drop-off points and attempting to have poll watchers confront voters who were delivering or filling out a ballot at Philadelphia voting centers, according to reporting from The New York Times and other outlets.
“Taken in total with some of the other rhetoric that’s out there, this just magnifies our concerns,” Eichelberger said.
His colleagues, county commissioners Jean Foschi and Vince DiFilippo, also confirmed the existence of the email and echoed similar sentiments.
Foschi said it would be “highly irresponsible” for the county to surrender such information given Trump’s threats.
Erik Arneson, executive director of the state Office of Open Records, which adjudicates Right-to-Knowrequests, said his office has never dealt with such a request seeking the election security information the Trump campaign is asking for.
“I’m not prejudging any case we might get or prejudging any facts,” Arneson said, but he offered some analogous scenarios where specific security information has been sought.
Right-to-Know requests for the location and security measures where police store confiscated weapons, for instance, or requests for information on when and how government agencies transport cash revenue, have been shot down.
“Those are things that wehave allowed agencies to withhold, because they do go to the issue of safety and security around critical infrastructure,” Arneson said. “Those kinds of things we’ve held are exempt under the Right-toKnow Law.”