Hundreds of Trump supporters protest at Election Bureau office

WILKES-BARRE — A large crowd of Donald Trump supporters turned out Friday in protest of the presidential vote count that shows Democrat Joe Biden on the verge of victory.

A couple hundred people, carrying signs and shouting “Stop the steal,” and other phrases stood on the corner of East Market Street and Pennsylvania Avenue near Penn Place where the Luzerne County Election Bureau Office is located.

Frank Scavo, a well known Republican who has sought political office in the past, said the protest was organized within an hour when it became clear that Biden was nearing victory over Republican Donald Trump.

Scavo and Joe Decker, a judge of election for Pittston City polls, organized the event to show their concern for the ballots and the process.

“The voters votes, how they are tabulated — especially the mail-in ballots — should be explained,” Scavo said. “The process should also be explained.”

Scavo said poll workers are to ask for ID if they do not recognize the person. Scavo, who is also a poll watcher, said he witnessed the process, as did Decker.

“We are very assured of that process, we are familiar with the checks and balances,” Scavo said. “The concern is on the mail-in ballot, no one gets to see who is control of that ballot, if the voter did the actual filling out of the ballot and we don’t know if the right precinct was listed. Was the ballot harvested? How do we know.”

A sizable majority — in fact, virtually the entirety — of the protesters were from Japan and South Korea, a group affiliated with the Rod of Iron ministries from Newfoundland, Wayne County, who stood on the street corner, chanting variously “Stop the steal” and “Count every legal vote!”

The group has been a frequent presence outside of Penn Place, and seemed incensed by what is increasingly seeming like a defeat for the President in the Keystone State.

One protester who joined the Japanese and South Korean individuals was Mira Williams, who said he was from Pennsylvania but declined to say what part of the state that he’s from.

“This is probably one of the most contentious elections of our history, and honestly the way it has gone down is really sloppy and terrible,” Williams said. “It’s caused exactly what we thought it was going to cause. And growing up, we always had election night on election night and you find out then, but now it’s been dragged out… and there’s a lot of suspicious things going on.”

When a reporter pointed out there have been several presidential elections within living memory that were not in fact decided on election night, including most notably 2000’s race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, Williams said that this is a different situation from those elections, saying it “seems a lot more worse.”

It’s unclear why exactly the protesters gathered outside of the Penn Place building, though, especially since Trump won handily in Luzerne County. Williams said he isn’t sure why the protest occurred here, saying he simply followed what Scavo said.

The other issue, Scavo said, is the Pennsylvania Legislature has to call a special session to direct the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reverse “their rogue ruling,” which allowed counting of mail-in ballots that were received after the polls closed.”

Scavo said all legally cast votes should be counted.

Scavo said he has called on all local state legislators to stand up and follow the letter of the law and order the court to reverse its ruling.

Scavo said his group is also collecting and documenting incidents of intimidation and voter fraud in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties. He said he has affidavits that were filled out by voters that were sworn before a notary and they are tabulating and will file complaints with the county election boards and will also sen them to Trump Campaign attorneys.

“We are going to pout a number of the amount of claims of fraudulent voting with documentation.” Scavo said. “We have about 40 sworn documents just since Thursday.”

Scavo said he expects to hear from many more with similar accounts.

Scavo said he agrees with Behrens that a statewide re-vote should occur.

Scavo asks people to call Justin Severe, field organizer for the Trump Campaign at 570-955-8846 if a voter knows of any discrepancies seen at the polls.