Lancaster County election officials accused of disenfranchising college students

Lancaster County officials refused to accept voter registration forms from college students due to misleading information. This provoked a harsh response from the Pennsylvania Secretary of State.

Lancaster County election officials have been accused of disenfranchising college students attending Franklin and Marshall according to Politics PA. 

The outlet reported over the weekend that Lancaster County was refusing to accept voter registration forms from students originally from a different state as the deadline to apply, this past Monday, was approaching. 

Laura Medvic, who works with F&M Votes, a nonpartisan voter registration organization that has operated at the school for 20 years, accused Lancaster County’s Deputy Election’s Clerk Lisa Dart of misleading students and the school that students cannot apply to vote until they canceled their voter registration in their home states. 

The Pennsylvania Department of State’s website lists requirements for out-of-state students attending college in Pennsylvania and they include: be a US and Pennsylvania citizen for at least 30 days prior to the upcoming election and be at least 18 years old on or before the day of that upcoming election. 

Nowhere does the website state that students have to cancel their previous registration in order to vote.

Lancaster Online reported that 260 students registered through the F&M Votes program this year, and as many as 30% of those registrations have not been acted on as of last Saturday. 

On Monday, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt sent a tersely worded letter to the Lancaster County Commissioners Office, which is controlled by two Republicans and one Democrat, about misleading voters.  

“In several conversations with the [Department of State] in recent days and in public statements, the county has incorrectly stated that an otherwise qualified citizen may not register to vote unless they have canceled their prior registration in another jurisdiction,” Schmidt said in the letter.

“This is an inaccurate description of Pennsylvania law, and this situation demands your immediate attention to correct the misconception you have created.”

Commissioners Joshua Parsons and Ray D’Augistino are the two Republicans in charge of the commissioner’s office and administrating the upcoming election. 

As commissioners, they voted to remove drop boxes, hired attorneys who tried overturning Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results and shared conspiracies about mail-in voting.