Washington, D.C. – Today, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (“RITE”) put Philadelphia officials responsible for administering the upcoming election on notice that they must follow the law and abandon their plan to “scale back” efforts to prevent double voting. According to a recent report, the justification for this shocking plan is officials’ belief that the processes used to catch duplicate votes prevents them from counting votes “without interruption,” which is a condition to receiving certain state election administration funds. As RITE explains in a letter to city officials, this belief is baseless. Stopping duplicate voting does not require interrupting the counting of votes. And even if it did, officials could not prioritize funding over their duty to protect the elections they administer from the scourge of duplicate voting. As explained in RITE’s letter, officials must continue to reconcile poll books with mail-in ballots to ensure no person can vote both in-person and by mail.
RITE will follow-up on its letter to ensure that this ill-conceived and unlawful plan to weaken
protections against duplicate voting does not infect the upcoming election.
Derek Lyons, RITE’s President and CEO, issued the following statement:
Just weeks before the election, officials in Philly are threatening to weaken crucial
election integrity measures that prevent people from voting more than once. It is
a core tenant of democracy everywhere that no person is allowed to vote more
than once. It is unacceptable for election officials to invoke imaginary concerns
about state funding to justify actions that threaten this sacred principle. RITE will
be watching this issue closely and will not hesitate to hold Philadelphia officials
accountable should they proceed with their flawed, dangerous, and illegal plan to
weaken protections about duplicate voting.
Co-founded in 2022 by National Finance Chairman Steve Wynn, Senior Advisor Karl Rove, and Chairman of the Board Bobby R. Burchfield, RITE is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization
dedicated to protecting the rule of law in elections. Working with some of the finest lawyers in the country, RITE supports faithful enforcement of valid, properly enacted and adopted laws and regulations that promote secure, efficient, and accurate elections throughout the United States.
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