Lawmakers have been known to jam their electronic voting machines with wads of gum, paper clips or crumpled up paper so they can record an “aye” or “nay” when they’re nowhere near the floor.

But when the House began granting its members “Capitol leave,” allowing them to register votes when they’re elsewhere in the Harrisburg area, much of the controversy fizzled.

Until now, that is.

In the race for southern Lancaster County’s House seat, Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong’s primary challenger claims the incumbent jammed his voting machine last week, then left the House floor without being granted a leave.

In a Friday letter to House Speaker John Perzel, Republican Bryan Cutler writes: “It is my understanding that Rep. Armstrong engaged in ‘ghost voting’ by inserting a penny into his electronic roll call voting button, allowing him to leave for long periods of time but still be counted as being voted on the questions raised by the House.

“Further, when his votes needed to be changed from ‘aye’ to ‘nay,’ he instructed other House members to change his vote for him,” Cutler wrote.

He is asking for an investigation.

Cutler is basing his complaint on witnesses both he and his campaign refuse to identify. He also will not say exactly on which days this is alleged to have occurred.

“We were able to confirm this, and that’s all I’m going to say at this point,” Cutler said. “I’m not going to say who our sources were.”

His campaign has, however, called a news conference for 8 a.m. Thursday morning in Quarryville, where he expects to further discuss the allegations.

Armstrong, responding in an e-mail, called the allegations “ridiculous.”

“I’m not going to respond to anonymous slander aimed at character assassination,” he wrote. “This is a desperate attempt to destroy my reputation by an overly-ambitious law school student who cannot win on the issues.”

The House was in session April 3, 4 and 5. Reached for further comment, Armstrong said he was on the floor the whole day, each day, and voted on each question himself.

Whether Armstrong was present on the House floor would seem to be a fairly straightforward matter to determine. But it is not. He is marked as being in attendance, and was not granted Capitol leave at any point during the week, according to the House Reporters Office.

But that does not mean he was necessarily in his seat or on the House floor when votes were being cast, as the chamber’s rules require. And most local lawmakers in attendance those days declined to comment; others said they did not take notice.

“He sits behind me. I really don’t monitor where he is,” said Rep. Gordon Denlinger, a Republican from Narvon.

He acknowledged, however, that the general practice of ghost voting is still employed by some of his colleagues.

“Those things do continue. It’s unfortunate but true,” he said. “I think conscientious members who need to be elsewhere in the building use the Capitol leave provision. But many members ignore that and have other seatmates or neighboring members handle their voting. We do see this happening on a regular basis.”

The two lawmakers who sit next to Armstrong — Reps. Curt Schroder of Chester County, and Rob Kauffman of Cumberland County — were unavailable for comment today.

The New Era sought the names of those who claimed to have witnessed Armstrong jam his machine, then leave the House floor, from Cutler and two of his campaign workers. Both declined to release them.

Shelley Castetter, Cutler’s press secretary, said: “How we found out is irrelevant. The point is, it happened and you can confirm that,” she said. She suggested that, while it was not a fellow lawmaker who initially contacted the Cutler campaign, at least one may have confirmed the account.

Ryan Aument, Cutler’s campaign manager, said he wouldn’t identify the witnesses because “we want to obviously protect them. They’re very reliable sources to us. They are friends and supporters of Bryan Cutler.

“It’s common that supporters of campaigns and candidates are in the galleries and observing,” he said. “Folks came back to us who observed this and indicated this and we have no reason to believe what they said isn’t right.”

Armstrong was one of 81 lawmakers who voted against the easing of House attendance rules in February 2005. The new rules passed, however, and allow members on Capitol leave to register votes while tending to other official business in the undefined “Harrisburg area.”

Unless a member is granted leave, he is expected without exception to be in his seat while voting, though that requirement has rarely been enforced, observers say.

There apparently is no specific penalty for breaking the rule.

Activist Tim Potts said he was on the House floor once, “and from where I was sitting I found six different voting machines blocked with paper clips and coins and wadded up pieces of paper.”

“I’ve never heard of any member being punished for abusing voting privileges,” said Potts, a former House staffer who now works for the grassroots group Democracy Rising.

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