Centre County residents hold post-election ‘Count Every Vote’ and ‘Stop the Steal’ rallies
Two opposing rallies that focused on Pennsylvania’s in flux ballot counting process transpired Thursday in Centre County.
About one dozen demonstrators caravanned at the Bellefonte offices of state Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman and state House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff to demand a thorough count of Pennsylvania’s general election results.
The hourlong gathering protested President Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the vote count in the battleground state, along with Corman and Benninghoff’s calls for the state’s top election official to resign.
“We want to make sure that everyone — especially elected officials — are respecting democracy in our country,” Ferguson Township resident Zachary Zobrist said. “I can’t think of anything more patriotic, anything more fundamental than having every vote count and making sure that this election is decided by the voters, not by people in power trying to influence the process.”
Corman and Benninghoff said in October that the state’s General Assembly “will not have a hand” in deciding the outcome of the presidential election.
The dispute between Republicans and Democrats has boiled down to what constitutes a legal ballot.
“We should count every legal ballot. We should take our time; make sure that we get every vote in, every vote counted,” Corman said Wednesday at a press conference outside the state Capitol. “Whether it’s me, whether it’s my family, whether it’s my community, we have to follow the rules of voting that day. Whether we vote in person or whether we vote by mail, we need to follow the law to make our vote count.”
Similar gatherings have taken place throughout the United States in the days after Tuesday’s presidential election. Unofficial results remain outstanding in several states, including Pennsylvania.
Centre County’s Republican Party organized a “Stop the Steal” rally in Patton Township hours later, with about a dozen people convening on the Waddle Road overpass with signs in support of the president.
“We’re here not just because we want Trump to win ... but it’s for everybody’s vote,” said Kris Eng, chairwoman of the Centre County Republican Committee.
Trump supporters have held such rallies across the country in support of the president’s allegations that there have been major problems with the voting and the ballot counting, especially with mail-in votes.