Incumbent Republican US Rep. Scott Perry, seeking his eighth term in a tight race against former WGAL anchor Janelle Stelson, cast his ballot at 7 a.m. Tuesday at Monaghan Presbyterian Church in Dillsburg, was asked whether he would accept the results of the election.
He replied, “I sure hope so.”
He said, “I think we’ve come a long way, at least in awareness of the integrity of elections.”
Perry had played a role in President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his involvement leading to the FBI seizing his phone during its investigation. He’s one of 10 election deniers on the ballot in Pennsylvania this year.
Perry also promoted conspiracy theories about the election, sharing a video that suggested that Italian satellites had been employed to hack voting machines and change results. Perry voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to derail certification of the election results.
At the polling place, he chastised Democrats for not passing Trump’s Save America Act, which would have placed restrictions on voting. He also said that “not much has changed in Pennsylvania regarding election integrity. So we certainly hope that there’s not going to be any reason to mistrust it. But we’re going to take a look at everything because this is how we settle our differences in America.”
On the tenor of the race, Perry complained about negative ads run by Democrats and said, “It really got into a negative kind of spiral for a while there, it seemed.”
The Stelson campaign did run ads critical of Perry’s record and his support of the cuts to Medicaid and rural health care included in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill Act. The campaign was also critical of Perry’s support for the war in Iran, saying it led directly to high gas and diesel prices.
Perry defended his campaign deploying negative ads—some found to be untrue or misleading—specifically mentioning ads accusing the Stelson campaign of hiring an illegal immigrant who was arrested for indecent exposure and accusing Stelson of exposing herself in the backyard of her East Pennsboro Township home.
The Stelson campaign has refuted both allegations, saying that the man was not employed by the campaign, nor was he a volunteer. The campaign also disputed the accusation of Stelson – leveled by a neighbor who claimed to have a photo of a naked Stelson – sunbathing nude in the backyard of her suburban home.
Perry said, “It’s not really an allegation, right? It’s in the police report.” Perry also said someone had sent him the photo of Stelson nude in her backyard. The photo has not been shared publicly.
He criticized the media for not reporting on the allegation against his opponent, saying, “It was not a full report. And that’s what I’m talking about, a fulsome, a fulsome showing of the information that affects how people are going to decide how they’re going to vote. A fulsome one, not a one sided one. A fulsome one. So if it would have been fulsome, I’d have been fine with it. But it was not. It didn’t tell both sides of the story, told one side of the story. What side was missing? Well, essentially, our side was missing.”
He told reporters that his campaign had to run the ad because the media did not report on the story. “One of the reasons we decided we had to do it is because you folks would not report. You would not report on these things. And so part of this is informing voters. All of this is informing voters. And if the press isn’t, if the independent press isn’t going to inform voters, then candidates have no, they have no choice except to be able to do that.”
Perry suggested there is a coverup of the incident, that requests for documents filed under the Freedom of Information Act have been denied. He wouldn’t “get into” whether police have covered up the incident, and said, “I think the police have done their job. But there’s a reason there must be some reason why numerous Freedom of Information Act requests are being denied. I don’t know what that reason is.”
He said, “There is a police report on the incident. The fact that we can’t get it just lends itself to something else. And as I’ve said, I’ve been around for a while. The cover up is always worse than the original infraction. And I don’t think we’re done with this story yet.”
East Pennsboro Township police have not filed charges related to the allegations.
Keystone senior newsletter editor Patrick Berkery contributed to this report.
