A Republican candidate in Pennsylvania who vowed to send “20 strong men” to harass pro-mask school boards lost his race badly last week—but now appears to be trying to intimidate the people counting all the votes he didn’t get.
Steve Lynch lost his bid for Northampton County executive to Democratic incumbent Lamont McClure by about 8,000 of the roughly 67,000 total votes. Rather than take the L, he and his sycophants have been “haunting” the Northampton County Courthouse where votes are being officially processed, The Morning Call reports. On Facebook, Lynch has blamed the entire vote-counting process, claiming that election integrity is “nonexistent.”
On Nov. 8, in a post with a Pile of Poo Emoji background, he wrote, “I'll be back at the courthouse tomorrow to expose even more corruption!”
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On Nov. 9, Lynch wrote, “Courthouse opens at 9:00 (1 hour) for canvassing the ballots in Northampton County. ...You should make your intentions known that the government in NorCo is no longer operating with impunity! We, the people, own this county, and we are not allowing corruption to be the law of the land.” He followed the post with a series of American flag emojis.
It’s not exactly clear what Lynch is hoping to find.
Documenting votes is not an exciting task. The Morning Call reports that a bipartisan team tallies each vote and corrects errors in order for the votes to be certified. The public is allowed to watch the entire lengthy process.
On his Facebook page, Lynch wrote, “We the people can see every ballot that they’re going through.” However, while seemingly contradicting himself, he simultaneously added in the same post, “But they aren’t letting you do that, so we’re exposing everything for you as it’s happening.”
The chair of the Northampton County Democratic Committee, Matt Munsey, told The Morning Call that it’s important for outsiders to be included in the process because “if anybody alleges anything after the fact, we can say, ‘We were here. It was standard operating procedure. Nobody did anything nefarious.’”
Nonetheless, that hasn’t changed Lynch’s perception of vote canvassing. He claims on his Facebook page that he continues to expose corruption.
“If anybody out there has a mail-in ballot that was sent to them that they didn’t fill out and send in, can you set it aside because we need to inspect this ballot. Please DM me thank you,” he posted on Tuesday.
This incident is not Lynch’s first attempt at being a misinformation pundit. He has claimed that the coronavirus pandemic was “weaponized to get rid of” former President Donald Trump.
In August, he launched a very Trumpian campaign and said he wanted to form a militia to fight a Harrisburg school board’s mask mandate. While at a Freedom Rally against mandates, he vowed to gather “20 strong men” to strong-arm school board members into resigning. Separately, in Facebook Live, he asked for legal assistance from attorneys to help him remove the school board. He later tried to backpedal on his Freedom Rally speech by saying he wasn’t trying to threaten anyone “with physical violence.”
McClure previously told The Daily Beast that his former political opponent is dangerous and has been investigated by the FBI for his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Lynch, a political newcomer who lists himself on LinkedIn as the owner of “Keystone Alternative Medicine And Weight Loss,” did attend the rally before the Capitol attack, but has denied any wrongdoing.
