EXCLUSIVE: Philly man indicted for threatening PA poll worker is a Democrat, poll worker supports Trump

A Philadelphia man was charged with threatening to kill and "skin alive" a woman who was recruiting poll watchers on social media. If he's convicted, John Pollard will face 5 years in prison. Pollard made the threats when responding to a social media post made by a woman who was seeking poll watchers. In her ask, she had shared her email and phone number. The woman Pollard threatened was a Trump supporter and Pollard is a Democrat.

Pollard reached out to her, saying he was "interested in being a poll watcher." When she didn't respond within nine minutes, he sent "I will KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T ANSWER ME!" A few seconds later, he sent the message "Your days are numbered, B*TCH!" This was followed by the gruesome "GONNA F*CKING FIND YOU AND SKIN YOU ALIVE AND USE YOUR SKIN FOR F*CKING TOILET PAPER, YOU F*CKING KKK*NT!" The last  message was sent only 10 minutes after he'd sent his first inquiry.

The Post Millennial spoke to Linda Kerns who heads up the Republican National Committee's election integrity council for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. "We knew almost right away," Kerns said, "when the staffer got the text message." 

"The reason her cell phone and email address were posted was because the poll workers make themselves so available to these voters, and we have voters constantly calling us, asking us questions," Kerns said, giving credit to the staffers for working so hard to make sure that voters are able to ask questions about polling and process and have them answered. 

In this case, Kerns said, "someone got a hold of her number, texted her these threats, but he used his own phone, so the staffer called me almost immediately." Right away, the incident was reported to law enforcement, but they also looked up the phone number itself to try to find out who had sent these vile missives. 

"We immediately found the name that was attached to the number," she said, "and using public records, we realized he was a Democrat. We reported all of that to the police." They reported it both to the police on the western side of PA and in the Philadelphia area, as the poll worker is from the west but the phone number was of Philadelphia origin. 

"But because it's a presidential election," Kerns said, "a federal election, I also called the FBI, and I advised them that I thought it was election interference." Pollard was later indicted. For Kerns, leaving out the party affiliations was negligent. 

"The indictment just simply said that a Philadelphia resident was charged for an election-related threat to a state party representative. They completely whitewashed the fact that this person was a Democrat, which is again available by public record, and that they threatened a Republican Party staffer."

While Democrats repeatedly speak about their lack of tolerance for political violence, GOP nominee former President Donald Trump has had two attempts made on his life. In the Philadelphia area, Trump supporters who show their support with lawn signs have been targeted with threatening letters. 

Kerns noted that "every time you turn around, you see people saying 'if you don't say Kamala Harris' name right you're offending her,' whereas we're actually having people get their lives threatened."

"We're a country of ideas and we settle things at the ballot box," she said, "you win or lose at the ballot box, you don't attack people, you attack ideas."