Did Early Voting Save Scott Perry's Seat?

Topic: Election Integrity & Audit The Vote

What the Data Really Shows

This week Scott Presler made several posts on his social media about how “early voting” is what gave us Republican victories across Pennsylvania or in some cases saved election seats in the Commonwealth. One in particular he emphasized was the role early voting played in Congressman Scott Perry’s 2024 victory in our 10th Congressional District, pointing out that Perry secured 42,001 early/mail-in votes out of his total 206,567, winning by 5,133 votes against Democrat Janelle Stelson.

What’s not being considered here is exactly where those votes came from. Audit The Vote is gravely concerned that this narrative is a sales pitch for the state GOP where Scott will be speaking on June 7th regarding his view of the importance of utilizing early voting and mail-in ballots and as such, his “analysis” oversimplifies the dynamics of Perry’s win.

The Alarming Mail-in Ballot Trends in District 10

See the following graph which looks closer at the number of ballots that were sent out by party versus the number of ballots that were returned by party versus actual votes each candidate got.

While the graph shows a higher volume of mail ballots returned for Perry compared to Stelson, it’s not accurate to say the return rate alone drove his success. Perry actually lost 3,000 Republican votes to Stelson, indicating some GOP voters crossed party lines, resulting in a net gain for the Democrats of 6,000 more votes than they would have gotten without early voting. But perhaps the most alarming statistic is that according to these numbers, EVERY SINGLE independent voter who returned a mail ballot in the district supported Stelson.

Think about that for a moment. Not a single third party voter cast a vote for the Republican candidate?? They ALL went to the Democrat?

The Real Reason Perry Won: Election Day Turnout

These shifts suggest Perry’s victory relied heavily on his Election Day turnout of 164,566 votes and his established base, NOT early voting.

Focusing solely on early voting as a strategy also poses risks for Pennsylvania’s political landscape. States like Oregon, Washington, Colorado and California, where early and mail-in voting dominate, have trended toward Democratic one-party dominance, driven by higher urban turnout and infrastructure favoring mail-in voting. Pennsylvania, a battleground state with a more balanced electorate, could see a similar shift if early voting overshadows in-person voting, potentially alienating rural and conservative voters who prefer Election Day… not to mention the high risk of fraud that they add to the mix.

Our Position: A Smarter, Balanced Strategy for Pennsylvania

We’re by no means suggesting to completely ignore mail-in ballots, a law that we’re stuck with until we can get a conservative majority on the PA Supreme Court in 2027 and refile the Act 77 lawsuit that the Commonwealth Court rightly ruled on in 2021 as unconstitutional in the way that it passed, bypassing the required procedure of going on the ballot as a referendum to the electorate. The Pennsylvania constitution explicitly states that any major changes to election law MUST go on the ballot for the voters to decide before being signed into law. Act 77 bypassed that provision entirely and was signed into law by Governor Wolf in October of 2019… conveniently right before COVID.

Why Targeting the Mail-in List Makes Some Sense

The five year, extensive election outcome analysis done by Audit The Vote’s data and engineering experts shows that a smarter, strategic approach is likely to yield MAGA candidate wins across the state while not compromising the integrity of the election process. This balanced approach would promote targeting the Republican voter base who are on the “early voting” list to receive a mail-in ballot 50 days prior to election day because obviously those voters will theoretically have a ballot in hand, and as such have at some point indicated a desire to participate in the election. Plus, this approach could catch and potentially stop mail-in ballot fraud by targeting the voters first who are on this list and potentially intercepting ballots that might otherwise go to voters who are no longer eligible to vote in the state.

Side note—We might also want to consider adding Independents to that targeted list since apparently NONE OF THEM voted for the Republican candidate in District 10 of the 2024 election… that doesn’t sound fishy at all though, does it? We digress…

Only then can we calculate what the in-person turnout has to look like in order to win the election and can formulate a plan to deliver that turnout. This approach capitalizes on already circulating mail-in ballots while preserving, as much as we can, the integrity of the vote.

An Open Invitation to Scott Presler: Let’s Talk

An objective and strategic data analysis shows that normalizing early voting is a losing strategy where the risk of fraud is MUCH higher than the potential benefit of added turnout. We are still very open to having a public converation with Scott Presler to foster some sort of collaboration and healthy debate in regards to this issue. Conservatives don’t censor dissent and ignore differing opinions on important topics. That’s a tactic of the Marxist left, something Presler seems adamantly against.

So the question is still out there—Why won’t Scott work with us on this?

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