Video recordings emerged on Friday capturing conversations between Delaware County, Pennsylvania election workers about obscuring “derogatory” information regarding the November 3, 2020 election.
The footage was secretly recorded by whistleblower Regina Miller and is among numerous recordings serving as evidence in litigation alleging multiple violations of election law as well as Pennsylvania’s “Right to Know” statute. Plaintiffs Gregory Stenstrom, Leah Hoopes and Ruth Morin filed the lawsuit in Delaware County Court in November.
The suit maintains that former Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, Delaware County, the county’s Board of Elections, and numerous election officials conspired to dispose of voting records to conceal election-law violations. Four counts made in the litigation assert that public officials destroyed evidence, breaching state civil law regarding fraud and failing to adequately answer a right-to-know request filed by a third-party attorney in May.
Sources familiar with the lawsuit said the attorney requested records—including return sheets and voting machine tapes—for each precinct in Delaware County to confirm the county’s official Nov. 2020 election results. Video footage acquired by The Federalist online magazine and dated June 3, 2021, reveals a discussion between two men, identified respectively as Delaware County lawyer Tom Gallagher and Media Borough West Judge of Election James Ziegelhoffer. They are shown looking through return sheets and commenting on notes written on them, apparently distinguishing between markings that they would feel comfortable disclosing and others they would not.
“When we Xerox these return sheets there are notes on these return sheets and we are going to have to cover them over with paper,” Gallagher says. “Somebody wrote on there ‘this is an outrageous example.’” Ziegelhoffer then says, “So, like, any derogatory or whatever.” Gallagher, replies, “Right.”
Pennsylvania law requires that voting records be preserved for 11 months after an election and federal law requires that those records be kept for 22 months after an election. Litigants maintain that many records were destroyed to ensure that the records that officials eventually provided actually matched the election results that were reported in Nov. 2020.
As The Star News Network has previously reported, video released earlier by sources with direct knowledge of the lawsuit show Gallagher and Ziegelhoffer both making comments about records they asserted should not be made available to inquiring members of the public.
At one point, Ziegelhoffer said to the whistleblower who is speaking to him off-camera that machine tapes are being thrown away but “they’re all unidentifiable.” After it was pointed out to him that all election records have to be preserved for 22 months, Ziegelhoffer replied, “Well, let’s put it this way: Yes, there are tapes that are being tossed, but they are of no audit value.”
A source involved in the lawsuit said that by “no audit value,” Ziegelhoffer meant the numbers indicated on the tapes will not jibe with election totals published last November.
In another video, Gallagher is shown tearing up long pieces of paper, allegedly the very machine tapes the county is required to keep.
“At this point, I don’t want anybody to pick it up and think that we threw stuff away,” he says to the whistleblower when asked why he is destroying records.
“We’re gonna have a little campfire going,” Ziegelhoffer then adds.
Another recording apparently taken by Miller shows a discussion between county Voting Machine Warehouse Supervisor Jim Savage and Director of Election Operations James Allen. When Allen mentions disposing of “pads and scanners,” Savage then says, “We can’t talk about it anymore.” Allen asks him why and Savage says, “It’s a felony.”
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “James Ziggelhoffer and Tom Gallagher” by The Federalist.
