DOYLESTOWN — Volunteers outside the Bucks County Board of Elections office on Thursday were in a celebratory mood, especially the Republicans. A recent legal victory had extended the deadline for "on-demand mail ballot voting" for three extra days, until Nov. 1. That meant hundreds of people, many of whom had been told they would not be able to earlier, could request and submit a mail ballot at the office ahead of Election Day. 

One Republican volunteer marched up and down the line that had formed carrying portraits of former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president, to mild applause.

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The extension was the result of a lawsuit brought by Trump's campaign against the Bucks County Board of Elections. On Oct. 30, a judge ruled that the decision to block some voters from participating in "on-demand mail ballot voting" before the process' effective deadline violated Pennsylvania's election code.

For their part, the Bucks County government said in a written statement on Tuesday that no one had been blocked from voting. They said they told only the voters who arrived at the election offices too late to make it through the line that they would have to come back. But voters could still submit applications for mail ballots, which they could pick up at the office later or have mailed to their homes.

This led to confusion at Bucks County election offices ahead of the Oct. 29 mail ballot application deadline — effectively also the deadline for "on demand mail ballot voting" — and some voters thought they were being told they couldn't vote.

Despite a judge ruling in the Republicans' favor, and extending the on-demand mail ballot deadline for those who were turned away, the whole saga left some in line wary of election officials' ability to fairly oversee the upcoming general election. And the rapid spread of viral misinformation about what had actually been occurring in Bucks County concerned disinformation experts bracing for a flood of fake news during the upcoming election.

Communication breakdown

Former Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, a Bucks County resident, told the Capital-Star she has voted through the on-demand mail ballot process for the last several elections. Typically, she said, she'd been able to get in and out of her election office in 15 minutes. 

But this year, even voting on the second or third day on-demand mail ballot voting was available, it took 45 minutes. That was days before the rush of people requesting mail ballots before the deadline and reports of lines being cut.

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"There was a line even then," Boockvar said. "There's definitely more voting by this method than I've ever seen before."

Boockvar attributed this, in part, to Trump. In 2020, he urged his voters to vote in person, on Election Day. This year, he's encouraged them to vote early and in person. But Pennsylvania does not allow early in-person voting as many understand it. On-demand mail ballots are the closest alternative, but still a wholly different option. 

"On demand" voting had also been advertised by the Bucks County Board of Elections at an Oct. 7 hearing, and by the Department of State on its election information site, as a way to go in person and cast a ballot before Election Day. Neither mentioned the possibility of voters being turned away before election offices closed.

Some who arrived at the Doylestown office on Saturday, Oct. 26 told the Capital-Star they were expecting a process like "early voting" in other states, where polling places operate similarly to how they do on Election Day itself.

Instead, county election officials had them fill out mail ballot applications. Officials checked the applications against county and state records to verify that applicants were eligible to vote and hadn't already voted, printed a ballot for each voter's voting precinct, and printed an envelope with a unique barcode for each voter. County officials said the process takes 12 minutes per application. 

County officials did not respond to emails with specific questions about how they communicated the limitations to voters. In a court filing, they submitted an official flier notifying voters that on-demand mail ballot voting was not the same as "early voting," and voters arriving too late to get a mail ballot by closing time could apply online for one to be sent to them.

Questions sent to Gov. Josh Shapiro's office were forwarded to the Pennsylvania Department of State. 

Dept. of State spokesperson Amy Gulli pointed to an Oct. 25 email sent to county election officials warning them of a potential surge of voters, and urging them to make plans to ensure everyone who arrived at their offices before 5 p.m. would be able to apply for a mail ballot.

"The Department of State is in regular communication with all of our county partners, providing guidance and assistance," Gulli said. "Ultimately, Pennsylvania's elections are run at the county level, and county boards of elections are responsible for individual staffing and resource decisions."

Ari Mittleman, the executive director of Maryland-based Keep Our Republic, a non-partisan group that studies election threats and conducts civic education around voting rules and issues, says part of the issue is Pennsylvania's election code, which does not explicitly mention on-demand mail ballot voting.

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"The Pennsylvania election code is fairly antiquated," Mittleman said. "I think that Democrats and Republicans are gonna learn, or are learning on the fly, a lot of lessons, some of which, I think, could have been predicted."

Recent legislative efforts to create a legal framework for "early voting" as it exists in other states have failed, largely due to partisan gridlock. Mittleman said the result of not having a more formal system to allow voting ahead of election day is that the rules around on-demand mail ballots are kind of a "patchwork." 

"It's clearly not the most efficient or modern patchwork," Mittleman said.

'That's when Fox News and the other news stations came'

Seemingly the most popular man outside the Doylestown election office on Thursday was Scott Presler, who wore blue jeans tucked into black boots and had long hair falling to the middle of his torso. He's something of a MAGA celebrity. Many voters approached him to shake his hand or take a selfie. He regularly interrupted his interview with the Capital-Star to shout words of appreciation to voters arriving in Trump hats or shirts.

Presler has been involved in pro-Trump activism in Pennsylvania and elsewhere for years. In 2020, he organized "stop the steal" events in Harrisburg after Trump's loss in that election. Before that, he had a leadership role in ACT for America, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls an anti-Muslim hate group.

Presler said he bought a home in Pennsylvania in May so he could vote for Trump in the state. He also founded a Republican get-out-the-vote organization called Early Vote Action and claims to have 70 employees.

The goal of Early Vote Action is two-fold: to create a Republican voter-turnout infrastructure that can match more established Democratic efforts, and to document what he views as suspicious activity at election offices and polls.

"If you see me, it's because something has gone wrong and I'm here to make it right," Presler told the Capital-Star. "I want to say a very peaceful, peaceful and stern warning: Anyone who cheats, we will catch you. We will find those people who are doing anything illegal."

He said that was why he was in Doylestown — because something had gone wrong.

Presler leveraged his social media reach — he has 1.7 million followers on X — to help spread viral images of Bucks County security guards telling voters that they couldn't get in line to cast on-demand ballots, despite the offices remaining open.

Presler attributed some of his popularity to having his posts shared by billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who this week replied to several videos alleging Bucks County voters were being denied access to polls.

One video was taken at Presler's request by Harry Tiffany, a New Britain resident who went to the Doylestown election office on Thursday just to thank Presler for helping draw attention.

Tiffany said that on Oct. 28, he had been told by a security officer that he wouldn't be able to cast an on-demand ballot, though he had arrived before closing time.

Knowing Presler from social media, Tiffany sent him a private message to tell him what he was seeing. Presler asked him to record it. That video, along with others taken both individually and at Presler's insistence, worked its way around MAGA social media. 

"That's when Fox News and the other news stations came," Tiffany said. "I don't want to brag, but it feels pretty good that this happened."

Some of the videos were shared with misleading captions. In a post with one such video, right wing activist Jack Posobiec, a prominent spreader of misinformation around the 2020 election. wrote "BUCKS COUNTY PA HAS NOW SENT OUT OFFICERS IN THE MIDDLE OF EARLY VOTING TO STOP PEOPLE FROM STANDING IN LINE TO VOTE."

Before the election offices had closed on what was then the last day of on-demand mail ballot voting, the videos had spread so widely that the county felt the need to respond.

"Contrary to what is being depicted on social media, if you are in line by 5 p.m. for an on-demand mail-in ballot application, you will have the opportunity to submit your application for a mail-in ballot," a spokesperson posted to the Bucks County Government Facebook page. "We are aware that, due to a miscommunication, individuals in line to apply for an on-demand mail-in ballot were briefly told they could not be accommodated. In fact, these voters were given the opportunity to submit mail-in ballot applications today."

That night, on Oct. 29, after the 5 p.m. deadline to apply for a mail ballot in Pennsylvania, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley appeared to cite social media videos in a speech at a Trump rally when he announced the campaign would sue Bucks County. The next morning, Trump himself posted on social media that, "Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels barely seen before."

One social media post containing a video taken in Bucks County, filmed by a woman being told that she would not be able to cast an on demand ballot, was cited in the Trump campaign's lawsuit.

The post mistakenly claims that the woman was being blocked from an early voting line. And the lawsuit alleges that the video is proof of people being denied a chance to apply for a mail ballot. But on inspection, that appears false.

The woman filming the video is handed what appears to be the same flier submitted to the court as evidence by the Bucks County Board of Elections. The flier notifies people of the difference between early voting and on demand mail ballot voting, and contains a QR code link to where voters can apply for a mail ballot online.

The lawsuit was successful regardless, and the judge ordered three Bucks County election offices to allow all eligible voters who lined up during business hours until Nov. 1 to receive an on-demand mail ballot.

Erik Nesbit, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Communication who studies mis- and dis-information, says that successful viral campaigns, whether intentionally misleading or not, often make viewers emotional and portray something novel. And videos and images are often more successful than words.

"Seeing people supposedly turned away, or security being called when they're trying to vote, hits both of those," Nesbit said. "It's novel and it's very emotional."

Nesbit also noted the speed with which claims about Bucks County spread online. He believes this is a result of practice by distributors of election misinformation, or a predisposition among recipients to distrust election officials after years of attacks.

"The ground has been clearly fertilized for us to be inundated with false, misleading claims about the election process," Nesbit said. "Trust in the election process has been degraded so much among a segment of our population."

Boockvar was also concerned by the speed that misleading claims about what happened in Bucks County spread. She, in part, attributes that to a much more established ecosystem of disinformation," than there was even in 2020.

That ecosystem, she said, is being used by foreign entities as well as Americans. A video posted on X on Oct. 24 claimed to show a man tearing up Bucks County ballots cast for Republicans. On Oct. 25, federal investigators said the video was fake and produced as part of a Russian disinformation campaign targeting Pennsylvanians. But it still spread through the same social media networks as the misleading Bucks County videos. 

Boockvar noted that, while foreign adversaries are still producing disinformation campaigns, over the last decade, election-related mis- and dis-information, like the Bucks County videos, has increasingly been originated by Americans.

"When we are doing it to ourselves, we are doing the work for foreign adversaries," she said.

And Boockvar, who was involved in many lawsuits challenging the Pennsylvania election in 2020, noticed another difference between then and now. 

In her observation, many misleading claims about the 2020 election that circulated on social media began with Trump campaign lawsuits or lawyers.

She remembers hearing Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani make a claim that there were more ballots cast in the 2020 election than there were ballot applications. She recognized, from public data on her department's website, he was comparing ballot applications cast in the 2020 primary election to ballots cast in the general election.

Because it was so easy to debunk, Boockvar said, she wrote it off. But after a time, the claim picked up steam and virality online.

"It was 100% obvious what they had done," Boockvar said. "But it spread like crazy."

In this case, she says, the pipeline appears to have reversed. "It largely went in the other direction, so, from lawsuit to viral social media, mostly," Boockvar said. 

'It was kinda just another opportunity to vote'

One thing both Democrats and Republicans in Doylestown agreed on was that it was a good thing to have more time to vote with on-demand mail ballots.

Skylar DiBerardinis and her fiance Jimmie Cianfaro had recently moved to the area from upstate New York. They were both voting for Harris. They had planned to vote on Election Day, but, after seeing they had an opportunity, decided to go early.

"It was kinda just another opportunity to vote," Cianfaro said.

Both of them believe they can trust the results of the election. Asked whether the reports of election workers stopping voters bothered her, DiBerardinis said "I didn't really pay too much attention."

Colette Paprocki, a Democrat who has supported Trump since 2016, doesn't see anything necessarily nefarious either.

"I understand people don't want to work overtime," she said about the elections office turning people away when the lines got long. "I just think they weren't anticipating (the crowd)."

Paprocki also says she trusts the results of the election, though expects some issues to arise. Fred Webster, a voter from New Hope, has lost trust. 

"I think people were trying to keep people from voting," Webster said. "I think it was partisan."

He believes the 2024 election will be "more accurate than last time," but is confident there will also be fraud, particularly in urban areas like Philadelphia. 

Charlie Kamps, who's also from New Hope, says he's "a bit skeptical on 2024. But it feels [like] the Pennsylvania Republican party has done a good job shoring it up."

Larissa Hopwood, a Democrat who was staffing a Harris table, was primarily glad more people had the opportunity to vote.

"The Democrats had actually been fighting for [expanded early voting laws]," Hopwood said. "It keeps being blocked and all that kinda stuff. Hopefully this will change that, making people a little more aware of what the actual process is."

She didn't believe the election workers in Bucks did anything wrong, at least not intentionally. But the apparently coordinated messaging she saw from the far right around people being blocked from the election office gave her pause. She was uneasy with so many Republicans, who she saw as historically opposed to early voting, suddenly championing it. And there was the presence of Presler, a known MAGA influencer, who she didn't think was from Bucks County.

"It seems to me that the Republicans were organized for this eventuality," she said about the on-demand mail ballot voting extension. "Like they knew that this was coming down the pipe."

Correspondent Christina Kristofic contributed to this report.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.