Chesco GOP Tribunal Fizzles — A Chester County Republican tribunal scheduled for last night, Aug. 3, fizzled when none of the committeewomen accused of being bad girls in the May 16 primary election showed.
Veronica Pidge of 405 precinct in East Nottingham simply wrote them and said she wasn’t going.
Nancy Gifford of 356 precinct in East Marlborough South told them she would be out of town and was given a continuance.
Donna Ellingsen of 215 precinct in Elk Township asked for a continuance to gather witness statements but was refused.
So she declined to attend.
She suspected the matter had already been decided.
The issue appears to concern a sample ballot the women distributed that didn’t included a couple of candidates endorsed by the county party.
Donna said any sample ballot would have been paid for by each individual and the candidates who may have been left off were people they did not feel comfortable endorsing.
In some cases, some names may have fallen through the cracks and some mistakes were caught in time, she said.
She notes that it isn’t definitively stated in the Chesco bylaws that committeepeople have to back a particular candidate in a primary election — what are primaries for after all? — as long as they back the winning candidate in the general.
That this is allowed is spelled out in the state GOP bylaws.
She further points out that the county GOP neglected to provide their own official sample ballots in time leaving the committeepeople to have to pay for their own.
The women are some of the most popular and successful committeepeople Chesco has, and their areas are among the tops in turnout for the GOP.