Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Daryl Metcalfe told The Daily Caller that it is illegal for any United Nations poll watcher or Department of Justice election monitor to enter any polling precinct in his state.
Metcalfe, the House State Government Committee majority chairman, said the only reason these individuals would want to observe his state’s election is to “intimidate” certified poll workers. He threatened to refer such poll watchers for prosecution.
“By our state law, if a DOJ employee or a U.N. connected individual tries to step a foot in our polling precinct, I will advocate that our attorney general and our county district attorney prosecute them to the fullest extent of our laws,” Metcalfe told TheDC on Monday.
“They can monitor from the same vantage point as anyone else is able to, outside of the polling precinct, at least 10 feet away from the entrance,” he said.
Metcalfe has already sent a letter to Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Carole Aichele “denouncing the recent invitation from the [Pennsylvania] Department of State welcoming United Nation inspectors to monitor Commonwealth polling places on Election Day.”
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), part of the United Nations, “plans to deploy 44 observers across the United States on Election Day,” said a press release from Metcalfe’s office.
“While the OSCE has not explicitly stated its plans to attempt to monitor Pennsylvania elections, eight civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the ACLU, sent a letter urging them to do so in states that have recently passed new election laws,” the release stated.
Melcalfe said the State Department still seems to believe that each county can decide who is allowed to monitor the election.
In addition to the U.N. employees, the Department of Justice is reportedly sending federal “observers” to monitor the election in 23 states on Tuesday.
“I think the problem with the DOJ sending anybody to monitor elections – all one has to do is look back at the case in Philadelphia with the New Black Panthers that they refuse to prosecute,” Metcalfe told TheDC.
“So anybody stepping a foot from the DOJ into Pennsylvania to try and monitor elections, I believe, would only be here to try and intimidate our workers, our election officials, and they’re not allowed in our polling precincts either.”
Melcalfe also said that “any official who would allow a U.N. affiliated observer to step a foot inside a polling precinct would be violating the law.”
“We certainly don’t need any foreign nationals monitoring our elections in the United States of America. We have been a model for the world in fair and free elections.”