Order of nuns living in monastery hit back after GOP canvasser falsely accuses them of voter fraud
Erie County, Pennsylvania is a swing county within a swing state, making it a key community to watch this Election Day
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Your support makes all the difference.A Pennsylvania canvasser claimed an address in Erie, Pennsylvania – a key swing county in a key swing state for the upcoming presidential election – is linked to 53 voter registrations and could be the source of voter fraud.
However, that address is home to the Benedictine Sisters of Erie – and they’re firing back at what they’ve called a “defamatory” claim from the canvassing group’s founder.
Cliff Maloney said on Monday that one of his members discovered an address in Erie with several dozen voter registrations – and claimed that “no one” lives there. Maloney is the founder of The Pennsylvania Chase, a self-described “ground-game campaign to knock 500,000 doors to chase GOP ballots & increase GOP mail-in results.”
“We knocked on the door because a Republican mail-in ballot is unreturned,” Maloney wrote on X. “Our attorney’s are reviewing this right now. We will not let the Dems count on illegal votes.”
The Benedictine Sisters of Erie were quick to hit back — and make it clear that they very much exist and reside there.
“We want to call Cliff Maloney to account for his blatantly false post that accuses our sisters of fraud,” Sister Stephanie Schmidt said in a statement. “We do live at Mount Saint Benedict Monastery and a simple web search would alert him to our active presence in a number of ministries in Erie.”
That same statement made it clear the sisters have no issue with canvassing and door-knocking — but they do care when “false information” is leveraged to “discredit differing views of affiliations.”
The organization is already pursuing legal counsel over what they’ve called “public defamation.”
“We recognize that many persons and organizations are victims of similar untruths that appear daily in social and other media,” their statement reads. “We are sharing our experience in an effort to increase scrutiny and to encourage others to ask questions and seek information.”
“We want to be on public record as having called out this fraud so that if the outcome of next month’s election is contested in Pennsylvania our integrity will not be called into question,” the statement continues. “We are also pursuing legal counsel regarding this public defamation.”
Linda Romey, a member of the Benedictine Sisters and their communications manager, told The Independent they responded to Maloney’s post because they want to dispel misinformation and promote citizens’ right to vote.
“We believe that to have a free and fair election, every citizen needs to know what’s going on and not believe everything they read on social media,” Romey said. “So we want to call out something like this that’s just a blatant untruth.”
On Tuesday, Maloney went on to claim the “commies” are now claiming people live there despite what his “team leader” saw.
“Now the commies are coming in claiming that ‘nuns live there’ or ‘you idiot just google it,’” he wrote. “WRONG. Our team leader spoke to the one person there and they claimed ‘NO ONE LIVES HERE.’”
When contacted for comment, Maloney sent The Independent a post on X from Wednesday evening.
“My goal is to only count legal votes,” Maloney wrote. “If the 53 people registered at this address are legal voters… then I encourage them to participate in their right to vote.”
Erie County will be one of the most closely watched locations come Election Day. Not only is Pennsylvania a key swing state, but Erie County is itself a swing county. Barack Obama won the county during in 2008 and 2012.
However, Donald Trump won it in 2016 before President Joe Biden secured it in 2020. Kamala Harris is currently leading the state by two points, according to the latest Washington Post/Schar School swing state poll.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on October 23 to include comment from Maloney.
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