On November 3, U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Pappert refused to enjoin a Pennsylvania state law that says poll watchers cannot work outside their home counties. Republican Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, e.d., 2:16cv-5524. The law won’t let poll watchers work outside their home county. The main function of poll workers, who represent political parties, is not to detect fraud at the polling place, but to notice which members of their own party have not yet voted, and coordinate attempts to persuade those party members to vote.

The decision says, “The content of a poll watcher’s statements cannot be characterized as political speech. When a poll watcher reports incidents of potential violations of the Election Code during the conduct of an election, he neither facilitates public discussion of a political issue nor advocates for a particular candidate, issue or viewpoint. Rather, poll watchers are not allowed ‘to advocate or talk political speech to the voters as they’re coming in’ or ‘wear garb’.” The decision differentiates between poll watching, and circulating petitions. Also, the decision says that the case should have been filed earlier; it was filed only 18 days before the election.