Feb 23, 2019 3 min read

The state’s auditor general said that 18 of the state’s 67 counties reported officials have accepted gifts from voting machine vendors, including a trip to Las Vegas, a wine festival and distillery tour, high-end meals and amusement park tickets.

“It doesn’t matter if the gifts are large or small. My problem is that anyone who accepted them, period, could have been swayed by some of those perks,” said Auditor General Eugene DePasquale.

During a Friday news conference, DePasquale said the state Legislature should create rules for officials in counties and municipalities similar to those imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf, who prohibits those under his purview from accepting anything – “even a bottle of water,” the auditor general said – for free.

“Even if the gifts have no impact, the mere appearance of it makes it look that way,” he said.

DePasquale had asked officials across the state to answer six questions about whether they accepted or were offered perks from voting machine companies as the counties work toward a Department of State mandate to upgrade voting systems by the end of this year. The new systems must have a paper record to allow for more accurate post-election audits.

Neither Fayette County’s commissioners nor Election Bureau Director Larry Blosser accepted gifts or travel, according to the statements sent to the auditor general’s office.

Responses from Blosser and Commissioners Angela M. Zimmerlink, Dave Lohr and Vincent Vicites said they have only interacted with voting machine vendors at conferences. Zimmerlink’s response noted only having one interaction with a vendor who was showing equipment.

“As a county elected official I have not accepted gifts of any kind; not served on any advisory boards; not had trips paid for by any voting equipment vendors etc.,” she wrote.

Officials in Greene and Washington counties responded similarly, noting they neither accepted nor were offered gifts or travel perks by companies.

Washington County’s response noted that in 2016, several officials attended a demonstration of equipment where lunch, coffee and donuts were provided by two different vendors. Last year, the same two vendors held separate demonstrations at the county building and provided lunch, according to the county’s response.

Westmoreland County Director of Elections Beth Lechman, who responded last week to DePasquale’s request, said one company paid for tickets for her and her husband to attend the Lake Erie Wine Festival in September and for dinner for the couple. She indicated the cost for tickets and dinner totaled about $115. Her response also noted that one company took her and the office’s deputy director to dinner at Monterey Bay Fish Grotto in 2018, at an estimated cost of $78 per meal.

However, she wrote, “To the best of the county’s knowledge, there have been no trips offered and/or refused and no county officials have attended seminars or conferences ‘hosted’ by a voting system vendor.”

DePasquale said officials making decisions about who will get their business “should not accept anything of value from companies,” because it “smacks of impropriety.”

Yet, he said, doing so is not illegal.

DePasquale questioned what information relative to the informed purchase of voting equipment was gained by accepting gifts.

“Why did these interactions need to take place over a lobster dinner and a distillery tour?” he asked.

He said he intended to refer some counties’ responses to the state Ethics Commission.