Meet the Pennsylvania nuns falsely accused of voter fraud

For a Republican canvasser going door-to-door to get out the vote in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the address on East Lake Road in Erie must have seemed like Heaven-sent evidence of the sort of widespread voter fraud many in his party have been complaining about since Donald Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in 2020.

For a Republican canvasser going door-to-door to get out the vote in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the address on East Lake Road in Erie must have seemed like Heaven-sent evidence of the sort of widespread voter fraud many in his party have been complaining about since Donald Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in 2020. There were 53 voters registered at the address, the site of a Catholic church, but not a single one actually living there, Cliff Maloney, a conservative operative and founder of The Pennsylvania Chase, claimed on X in a post that quickly went viral. But there were voters at that address – dozens of them actually. Fifty-five hard-to-miss nuns of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie. A so-called ballot chaser, who goes door-to-door encouraging voters to return their mail-in ballots, had somehow missed the packed parking lot and the bustling reception area where nuns shuffled between their simple living quarters and the impressive stained-glass windows in the chapel. “We’re used to being accused of things like being too active. And we’ve always been very vocal about peace and justice,” Sister Annette Marshall told CNN in an interview Thursday. “But I’ve never heard us accused of fraud. … Or not existing.” The monastery has been in Erie since the 1850s and moved into their current building in 1969, in part financed by sisters who formed a real-life musical “Sister Act” group to raise funds. Most of the residents have lived there for decades and are deeply engaged with the community.