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A watchdog group has filed a complaint alleging conservative activist Scott Presler and his political action committee may have violated state campaign finance law in Pennsylvania.
Presler is based in Pennsylvania and has gained a national profile for voter registration work and ongoing searches for noncitizen voters. The complaint alleges that despite his extensive campaigning in the state in 2025 urging voters not to retain three state Supreme Court judges, Presler and his organization, Early Vote Action, did not disclose sources of revenue or detailed expenditures as required.
“Presler has every right to conduct such political activities, but lawmakers and voters also have every right to know who is paying how much to influence their political choices,” Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, which filed the complaint, said via email. Public Citizen is a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit focused on democracy and corporate power issues.
Presler did not respond to requests for comment.
According to Pennsylvania campaign finance law, political action committees are required to report expenses, as well as the names of all contributors who give more than $50, when their spending exceeds $250. While Early Vote Action is registered with the Federal Election Commission, a search of the state’s campaign finance database shows that the organization has never registered as a political action committee or submitted reports in Pennsylvania.
Fines for late filings in the state are relatively minimal. Failure to file is more serious, and can result in fines of up to $5,000 and jail time for a candidate or the treasurer of a political action committee, but charges for this are exceedingly rare.
Enforcement of Pennsylvania campaign finance law violations is lax, and Presler isn’t the first activist to face questions over whether expenses were properly reported in recent elections.
The new complaint against Presler focuses on his activism in the 2025 election. That year, three state Supreme Court judges, who were originally elected as Democrats, were on the ballot for retention, a type of election where voters select “yes” or “no” to indicate whether they would like the judge to serve another 10-year term.
Republicans, including Presler, were campaigning to unseat the judges in the hopes of opening the court up for an ideological shift during the 2027 municipal election.
“If we defeat even 1 of these democrat Supreme Court Justices this November, we will go down in Pennsylvania history,” Presler said in a September 2025 post on the social media site X, which showed him placing Early Vote Action-branded “Vote No” signs along a roadway.
Public Citizen said in its complaint that according to press reports, Early Vote Action used paid staff, engaged in voter outreach, and purchased digital and print media during the campaign — all expenditures which should have been detailed in campaign finance reports.
The complaint was lodged with the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees the state’s campaign finance law. A spokesperson for the department confirmed the state had received the complaint but said that it does not comment on investigations.
This is not the first time Public Citizen has complained about Presler. In March the group filed a complaint with both chambers of Congress alleging Presler was not registered as a lobbyist as he should be, given his work pressing members of Congress to pass the SAVE America Act. Front Line Government Relations, a firm representing Presler Persistence, LLC, subsequently registered and filed disclosures.
(Neither entity has ever registered as a PAC in Pennsylvania.)
Presler has also been gaining national attention in recent weeks for his request to Pennsylvania counties for lists of individuals who were rejected for jury duty due to their lack of U.S. citizenship, which he says he will cross check against the state’s vote roll for evidence of illegitimately registered voters.
Presler’s social media posts citing the numbers of noncitizens who were rejected from jury lists attracted the attention of U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, a Republican, who said it was evidence of a “badly broken” system. Those posts also prompted a direct rebuke from the Pennsylvania Department of State, which clarified online that inclusion on a jury rejection list doesn’t mean a person is registered to vote.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.