Ryan Mackenzie

Travis Gettys is a senior editor for Raw Story based in northern Kentucky. He previously worked as a web editor for WLWT-TV and a contributing writer for the Kentucky Enquirer, and he also wrote for the award-winning Sadly, No! blog. He has covered national, state and local politics, breaking news, criminal investigations and trials, sports and a variety of community issues, with a special emphasis on racial justice, right-wing extremism and gun safety.

One of the Republican Party’s best-known voter-registration activists has reportedly paid at least two people with serious criminal records to run get-out-the-vote operations in Pennsylvania, according to a new investigation.

The Bulwark reported Friday that GOP operative Scott Presler paid two convicted felons through his super PAC, Early Vote Action, which has raised nearly $10 million this cycle for year-round operations in the swing state that has at least four competitive House races this year.

One of the PAC’s regional coordinators is Brandon Matlack, who works in the Lehigh Valley area. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, a first-term incumbent, is facing Democrat Bob Brooks there in one of the country’s most closely watched races, and FEC records show the PAC has paid Matlack more than $82,000 since October 2024.

The Bulwark matched his address and date of birth to court records for a Bethlehem man named Brandon Matlack who pleaded guilty to felony strangulation in 2022.

Police say Matlack shot a friend with an AK-47-style rifle in 2012, and in 2016, state police say, he zip-tied his father and demanded $4,000. According to court records, Matlack was still on probation for the strangulation conviction when Presler’s PAC started paying him, according to The Bulwark.

Another regional coordinator, Julie DeVuono, has received more than $46,000 from the PAC since March 2025. DeVuono is a former nurse practitioner who made national headlines in 2022 for selling forged COVID-19 vaccine cards on Long Island.

Prosecutors also found she had written fraudulent oxycodone prescriptions. She pleaded guilty to felony money laundering and forgery and forfeited more than $1.2 million, and she is on probation until 2029. On X, she calls herself a “Justified Felon.”

The hires are especially awkward because of what Presler has been saying about Democrats.

On Sept. 30, he accused Janelle Stelson, the Democrat challenging Rep. Scott Perry, of employing a Nigerian immigrant who was charged with indecent exposure. The Department of Homeland Security later repeated that claim in a press release.

Stelson flatly denied it. “He’s not an employee. He’s not a volunteer,” she told reporters. Her campaign’s financial filings do not list the man, and Axios found no record of him in the campaign’s volunteer database.

Presler was already taking fire from inside his own party. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called him a “grifter” earlier this year after Presler backed Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate primary.

Presler, Early Vote Action, Matlack and DeVuono did not respond to The Bulwark’s requests for comment.

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