Woman who taunted 'Count Every Vote' protest was alleged Pittsburgh poll worker booted from precinct

Yesterday, a group of about 100 protesters took to the streets in Downtown Pittsburgh calling for every vote to be counted. The Pennsylvania election is very close, and there are still hundreds of thousands of ballots to count. Most of them have been skewing towards Joe Biden, and it appears that when all are counted, Biden will have defeated President Trump in Pennsylvania, and thus securing the Electoral College.

During the march, the protesters were confronted by a heckler who taunted the crowd while wearing a red mask reading, “CNN Fake News.” It might have seemed just like another counter-protester, but according to sources on the ground, and Pittsburgh City Paper photographer Jared Wickerham, that heckler appeared to be Brittany Acosta, who a day earlier, was removed from her position as a poll worker in Pittsburgh.

Brittany Acosta, who was permitted to return as a poll worker to Ascension Church after she promised to stop photographing ballots, has violated the judge’s order. Sheriffs deputies are now on the way to remove her. pic.twitter.com/IygnKEuEZh

— Paula Reed Ward (@PaulaReedWard) November 4, 2020

As reported by TribLive reporter Paula Reed Ward, Acosta was first removed as a poll worker for taking photographs of people voting, was allowed to return after she promised to stop photographing ballots, then eventually removed by Allegheny County Sheriffs after she violated a judge’s order.

According to a video of the protest on Twitter, when asked if she was Brittany Acosta and booted from her position as a poll worker, the woman who appeared to be Acosta said yes, before being asked again and then said no. Photographs of the woman who appears to be Acosta match pictures of Brittany Acosta from 2011, when Acosta went to court for allegedly trying to force her way into American Idol auditions.

At one point during yesterday’s “Count Every Vote” protest, the woman who appears to be Acosta screams at a protester, “Do you want me to hit you in your face? Do you want me to fucking hit you in the face?”

Seems like this is Brittany Acosta, who was removed twice from polling places yesterday for photographing ballots. https://t.co/xWolE5I7qh https://t.co/G8XKxcTtq8

— Christian Snyder (@csnyderj) November 5, 2020

CP witnessed some of this taunting happen at the corner of Grant Street and Sixth Avenue. Pittsburgh Police civil affairs officers eventually broke up the skirmish. After the crowd returned to the City-County Building where the protest started, the woman who appeared to be Acosta stood on the edge of the crowd, and had flipped her “CNN Fake News” mask inside out.
On Election Day, Tue., Nov. 3, CP witnessed the same woman in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood outside the University of Pittsburgh Student Union building. There, CP saw her wearing the same red mask, confronting a volunteer who was handing out pizza to voters. The woman who appeared to be Acosta was complaining that volunteers were handing out pizza too close to signs for Joe Biden. (There were dozens of signs in that area).

CP overheard her tell the volunteer that she was a Republican.

The Pitt student union building is less than one mile from Ascension Church, the polling place, where Acosta was booted from on Election Day.