No death threats, masks, or fake electors: Pa. casts Electoral College votes without controversy

Gillian McGoldrick, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Dec 17, 2024

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There were no death threats, no slate of fake electors, and no masks.

Pennsylvania’s electors met without issue on Tuesday in the state House chamber in Harrisburg for electors to complete their fundamental task of casting the state’s 19 Electoral College votes for President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

The 2024 meeting of Pennsylvania’s electors was nothing like that of 2020 — and mostly a return to the norm.

“Pennsylvania’s electoral system worked,” said Jim Worthington, the Bucks County fitness empire owner and Trump elector, in remarks read by Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Tabas. Tabas replaced Worthington as an alternate elector and president of the state’s electors as Worthington awaits the birth of his daughter.

“Pennsylvania is the birthplace of our nation, and once again we played an outsized role,” Worthington added, noting the commonwealth’s role in helping deliver the presidency to Trump as the swing state with the most Electoral College votes.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, could not attend the proceedings due to weather conditions that prevented him from flying into Harrisburg from his earlier event in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Eagles. Secretary of State Al Schmidt read Shapiro’s remarks on his behalf and congratulated the 19 electors and alternate electors for fulfilling their duty in the state’s 60th electoral college meeting.

“For nearly two-and-a-half centuries, Pennsylvania has gone to the ballot box and made their voices heard, voices that you reflect as you cast your ballot today,” Shapiro said. “This year, millions of Pennsylvanians went to the polls, and we once again held a free, fair, safe and secure election here in the commonwealth.”

The public was barred from attending the Electoral College meeting, allowing only invited guests and credentialed press to view the critical democratic process in person.

The Department of State did not immediately comment on why the public was not allowed to attend as they have in previous elections. It marks the second straight presidential election in which public was barred from observing the vote, including during the 2020 public health emergency.

In 2020, still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, electors for President Joe Biden had to change the long-used location of the state House chambers to cast their votes to allow for social distancing. That location was kept secret from the public — though not from the press — to prevent security threats, as election officials and individual electors faced death threats after Trump spread conspiracy theories about the state’s results.

Unlike Trump in 2020, Vice President Kamala Harris accepted this year’s results and encouraged her supporters to do the same. That meant there was far less drama on Tuesday — and less of a threat to electors’ physical safety — than four years ago.

In 2020, Republican electors met in Harrisburg to sign documents falsely asserting that Trump won the election, which Bucks County GOP Chairwoman Pat Poprik, who served as a fake elector, said was as a precautionary measure in case Trump’s legal efforts were successful.

Now four years later, Poprik served as the vice president of the state’s electors and reflected on the contrast.

“There were so many stories about the fake electors and stolen elections, all that stuff, it just put a pall over everything,” Poprik said. “This one was so clear, and so everybody was so happy. There was no dragging it out for months.”

Staff writer Katie Bernard contributed reporting.