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A government watchdog group is accusing conservative activist Scott Presler and his political action committee of failing to disclose money spent trying unsuccessfully to defeat three Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices in last year’s retention election.
Presler and his organization, Early Vote Action, had campaigned against retaining Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht in the 2025 judicial elections. A complaint filed with the Pennsylvania Department of State by Washington-based Public Citizen alleges Presler and his organization did not properly register with the state and did not disclose campaign-related sources of funding or expenses, as required by state law.
“They’ve never registered as an independent expenditure committee,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a nonprofit accountability watchdog organization. “Presler was obviously very active in the Pennsylvania 2025 retention election, and voters have a right to know how much anyone is spending to try to affect their vote choices.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Early Vote Action was not found in a search of the state’s online campaign financereporting website for the 2025 election cycle. Under Pennsylvania law, political committees that spend more than $250 to influence an election must register and regularly disclose their expenses. They must also identify contributors who give more than $50. The law expressly includes judicial retention contests in its definition of an election.
The complaint alleges Early Vote Action easily surpassed the reporting threshold during the 2025 campaign. Public Citizen cited reports that the group employed at least two dozen full-time staff members in Pennsylvania, distributed “Vote No” literature at public events and sent tens of thousands of postcards to Amish voters. The organization also allegedly paid to send more than 100,000 text messages to voters in Bucks County and purchased digital and printed campaign materials.
Presler, a Republican voter registration activist who campaigned for Donald Trump and other Republicans in 2024, sought to mobilize the “Make America Great Again” movement to vote against retaining the three justices, all Democrats, citing their past rulings on COVID-19 pandemic “lockdowns” and voting laws.
State Supreme Court justices are elected to 10-year terms in partisan elections. At the end of their terms, they stand for retention elections in which voters can decide if they should serve an additional term. During the 2024 election, the court leaned Democratic, with a 5-2 majority, prompting unprecedented attention on what are usually quieter races. If Republicans had been able to remove three of the Democrats, they might have been able to reshape the court’s ideological balance for years.
The campaigning against them prompted the three justices to make rare public appearances to defend their records. Ultimately, Early Vote Action’s efforts failed, and all three were retained.
However, Holman wants Early Vote Action to retroactively register and disclose its spending now as a way of “putting Presler on notice.” He said Presler has “a history of not registering and disclosing his expenditures in politics altogether.”
Holman had previously filed a federal complaint against Presler for failing to register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act after lobbying for the SAVE Act, proposed federal legislation that would mandate documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, require specific forms of photo IDs to cast a ballot and place additional restrictions on mail-in voting. That legislation still faces some Republican opposition.
“I’m hoping the result of this [recent] complaint will put Pressler on notice that he is being watched as to whether he is complying with the disclosure laws at both the federal and state level,” Holman told WHYY News. “So when he decides to lobby Congress again or get involved in campaigns again, he’ll finally register and disclose promptly when he is supposed to.”
Failure to submit required campaign finance reports can carry civil penalties. Willful violations may bring more serious consequences, although criminal charges over campaign finance reporting are rare.
Presler, who resides in Beaver County, remains active in Pennsylvania as the midterm elections draw near, most recently campaigning to get people removed from voter rolls in Philadelphia and around the state.
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