Voters Report Suspicious Irregularities In Three Different Primary States

By Nathan Wellman

In what is becoming an outrageously predictable trend, Hillary Clinton supporters have been caught breaking election laws again and other voting irregularities have been reported across three of today’s five primary states.

Pennsylvania voters have reported on Reddit that the following campaign advertisements for Clinton were being distributed inside polling locations in clear violation of electioneering law.

Pennsylvania’s electioneering laws clearly state that “No person, when within the polling place, shall electioneer or solicit votes for any political party, political body or candidate, nor shall any written or printed matter be posted up within the said room… ”

The law then goes on to specifically mention that solicitations “must remain at least ten (10) feet distant from the polling place during the progress of the voting.”

And yet, the following video shows these Hillary Clinton slips inside the North Temple Baptist Church polling location on 1628 Master Street in Philadelphia, with the poll worker refusing to throw them away even after being confronted.

The worker admits at the beginning of the video that “Whoever’s supposed to be giving these out is supposed to be outside.”

Videographer Daniel Laufer rightly points out that this is against the law, and politely asks if he can remove the offending slips from the polling station. The worker says “No you can’t have these,” blatantly admitting that “They have to hand them out as people come in.”

Again, Laufer tries to remain calm as he explains: “This is trying to sway people and you’re not supposed to do that according to the law.”

“It’s not swaying anybody,” the poll worker replies. “You have your own mind, you vote for whoever you want to.”

“The law is the law, and this is against the law.”

“I understand that, but are you a lawyer?”

“I don’t need to be a lawyer to know that.”

From here out, the poll worker just keeps repeating that voters can “vote for whoever they want to” without directly responding to the fact that these advertisements are a textbook case of electioneering, which is banned under state law within the polling place.

Laufer told US Uncut that in addition to the Clinton campaign literature inside the precinct, the polling place was plagued by other irregularities, like two broken voting machines that weren’t replaced for hours and the precinct being closed to early voters.

“Polls were supposed to open at seven,” Laufer said in a phone interview. “I got there at 7:30, and it wasn’t open yet.”

To test the reaction of poll workers, Laufer tried handing out pro-Sanders campaign literature more than ten feet away from the polling precinct, and poll workers threatened to call the police on him.

Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, a voting machine wasn’t allowing a voter to select Bernie Sanders.

Brooks Bell posted video of himself on Instagram trying to press Sanders’ name on an electronic voting machine, which failed continuously to record his selection. New York Daily News columnist Shaun King tweeted the video, which garnered thousands of retweets in a matter of hours — though it was later revealed that the machine simply wasn’t turned on:

Philly voters saying polls won't let them vote for Bernie.

This is from: https://t.co/ZaptIgocQ1 pic.twitter.com/uyRRFo8zD7
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 26, 2016

In Connecticut, where 55 pledged delegates are up for grabs, one voter recorded his father’s party affiliation mysteriously changing from “Democratic” on April 23 to “Unaffiliated” on April 25. In Connecticut’s closed primary, voters not identifying as Democrats or Republicans aren’t allowed to vote.

This happened on a large scale in the Arizona primary, with the Secretary of State admitting in a public hearing that staffers in her own office had their party affiliations changed without their consent. Voters’ party affiliations were changed in New York as well, with some voters showing proof that the signatures on the documents in question were forged.



Election irregularities are also being reported in Rhode Island, as voters are having to drive around for hours to find their polling place after the state closed 66 percent of voting precincts last week. Only three out of seventeen polling places in North Providence were open for Tuesday’s primary, leading to some confusion among voters.

“Someone should be making an announcement or something,” voter Nick D’Amico told the Providence Journal. “Otherwise you could be standing in line for 30 minutes before you realize you’re in the wrong place.”

This continues a string of election debacles which always seem to favor Clinton, from Bill Clinton campaigning for Hillary with a megaphone well within the boundaries of the polling station in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to 126,000 Brooklyn voters mysteriously being purged from the list of registered Democrats.

And although the fiasco in Maricopa County, Arizona, was largely the result of Republican officials, it seems to have favored Clinton’s campaign, as the early voting swayed overwhelmingly her way, while election day voting trends suggest that those disenfranchised by the mishandling of polling stations would have reduced Clinton’s margin of victory over Sanders had they been allowed to vote properly.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been amended to remove an incorrect paragraph claiming Rhode Island has closed primaries. Rhode Island’s primaries are semi-closed, meaning unaffiliated voters can vote in either party’s primary.)

Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW