The website maintenance would’ve begun around the time former President Donald Trump took the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Department of State has pushed back maintenance of its online voter registration website amid complaints from the Republican National Committee.
The original scheduled downtime for the state’s voter registration website would’ve overlapped with a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump in Butler Township, Pennsylvania; the same venue where he narrowly survived an assassination attempt on July 13.
The department, which oversees elections in Pennsylvania, posted a
notice on Oct. 1 telling residents in the state that the online voter registration website would be inaccessible between 6 p.m. on Oct. 5 and 12 a.m. on Oct. 6. During this maintenance period, the notice stated the voter registration website would be unavailable to users.
Meanwhile, the Oct. 5 Butler Township campaign rally has been
visible on the Trump campaign website since at least Sept. 27.
The website maintenance decision caught the attention of Scott Presler, whom the RNC has tapped to lead the Republican get-out-the-vote effort this
election cycle.
Presler called the timing of the website maintenance into question, and directed an Oct. 2 social media
post at the Pennsylvania State Department’s office, asking, “How do you respond to the accusation that you’re engaging in
election interference?”
“Wow, they aren’t even trying to hide their blatant interference,” RNC co-chair Lara Trump said in her own Oct. 3 social media
post calling out the timing of the website maintenance.
Lara Trump, who is Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, said the RNC’s legal team had sent the Pennsylvania State Department a formal request to reschedule the voter registration website’s maintenance.
By Thursday afternoon, the Pennsylvania State Department had
decided to push the planned website downtime window forward by four hours. The voter registration website will now be offline from 10 p.m. on Oct. 5 to 4 a.m. on Oct. 6.
“Our work getting the voter registration maintenance changed probably will net President Trump a few thousand more votes during the peak time of his rally in Butler this Saturday. Very proud,” Presler
said following the rescheduling decision.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Pennsylvania State Department for comment about the decisions surrounding its website maintenance downtime. The department did not respond by publication time.
Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds at around 6 p.m. on Oct. 5; the same time the Pennsylvania State Department originally intended for the voter registration website to be down for maintenance.
