Hello, Pennsylvania!

I have some interesting and timely news to share with you this week.

First, I scooped earlier this week that Delaware County, outside of Philadelphia, is now requiring its poll workers to take an oath affirming that they will not use predictive markets to make bets on elections.

Betting on elections is already banned, but prediction markets like Kalshi take issue with categorizing what they offer as a bet, and they have been fighting similar rules in other states. Election Director Jim Allen told me he didn’t want to take any chances with what he sees as something that could be extremely detrimental to election trust. Read the full story here.

Next, if you follow election news at all, you’ll probably agree with me that the prospect of noncitizens registering or voting in our elections is the number one issue, or at least, it is what gets talked about the most. So we thought: Wait, don’t we have an expert on this in the state? Someone who exposed a major issue allowing noncitizens to vote? What does he think?

Al Schmidt, as a commissioner in Philadelphia back in the day, uncovered one of the largest single instances of noncitizens registering to vote. But he isn’t hyperbolic about it, and is clear-eyed about the need to balance integrity and accessibility in elections. I spoke to him about his 2017 discovery, and what lessons it holds for the current moment. Read that story here.

“It would require a government-issued ID, which not every student on campus gets. They’re almost definitely not traveling with their birth certificate, so it will make it harder to register on campus and vote in Philadelphia for students who aren’t from the city.”

This week’s quote comes to us from Seth Bluestein. The Philadelphia city commissioner spoke with the University of Pennsylvania’s student newspaper about what impact the SAVE America Act would have on student voters. Bluestein, and others, noted it would pose a logistical challenge to this class of voters. I recommend giving the story a full read.  

Last week, Republican activist Scott Presler made several posts on X about supposed noncitizens on Pennsylvania’s voter rolls. A few caveats first:

That said, I checked the names of the people in the DHS database with their associated criminal records and the voter rolls, and for the two specific individuals he posted about in Pennsylvania, I also found a match.

But in Presler’s comments and replies to his findings, I saw people saying things like “they keep insisting that this sort of thing never happens.” That isn’t what I’ve heard from election officials, Republicans or Democrats. What I hear them say is basically: yes, it happens sometimes, in small amounts, but nowhere near the amount the political rhetoric around this issue would lead you to believe.

That is basically what Secretary Al Schmidt told me in our story that coincidentally came out just a few days prior.

Presler’s findings would be in line with those observations. Assuming they are in fact noncitizens who are or were on the rolls, they would be two in a state of roughly 9 million voters.

What else should I look into? You can always reach me by email at [email protected], on X @ByCarterWalker, or on Bluesky @bycarterwalker.bsky.social.

And if you know someone who might be interested in our reporting on elections and voting throughout Pennsylvania, forward them this newsletter — they can sign up for it here.

You're invited: How the 2000 election set the stage for 2026

The 2000 presidential election didn’t just decide a presidency — it reshaped the way America runs elections. Join us on April 23 for a virtual conversation with election law scholar Rick Hasen and long-time Florida election administrator Paul Lux. Together, they’ll explore how the crisis in Florida led to the creation of the Help America Vote Act, the modernization of voter rolls, the birth of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and a lasting debate over the federal government’s role in elections.

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