Who is Pa. Sec. of State Kathy Boockvar? She is in charge of securing the battleground state's election

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar defended her work Thursday night, saying it was free from politics as counties continue to count votes in the tight race for president in the battleground state after tweets she wrote years ago surfaced this week. 

One tweet on her active @KathyBoockvar Twitter account in 2017, before she took office, read, "Using the title 'President' before the word 'Trump' really demeans the office of the presidency."

During a news conference updating the vote count process in Pennsylvania, she was questioned about it, and those who say she has partisan views on the election she is now in charge of overseeing. 

"These were four years ago and at the time I was not in the administration. I was not in any public service. I was a private citizen. It was a personal Twitter account," said Boockvar, a Democrat.

"And when I became secretary of state, I took an oath to defend and protect the constitution of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the constitution of the United States and partisan politics have no place in the Pennsylvania Department of State or any county election office."

She added that she will do "everything in my power to make sure every voter, every candidate and every party has access to a fair, free, safe and secure election."

The comments are indicative of the higher profile Boockvar now faces as she tries to ensure a fair count amid criticism from Republicans over the process in the office she oversees.

More:Pa. Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar casts early vote in Bucks County

Who is Kathy Boockvar?

Boockvar, 52, of Bucks County in suburban Philaldelphia, became secretary of state in January 2019.

Before that, she was the senior election modernization advisor to Gov. Tom Wolf as the state implemented a statewide change from digital-only voting machines. She helped oversee the to switch to voting machines that created a paper voter-verifiable ballots for this election.  

While that one change alone was a major undertaking to see through, Boockvar said it was really just the start of what would become a series of monumental election reforms in the state.

"We’ve seen more change to how voters can vote in Pennsylvania and how our elections are run in the last two and a half years than we've seen basically in the last century," Boockvar said in an interview last week.

She also helped implement  Act 77 of 2019, which opened mail-in ballots any registered voter in the state by creating a no-excuse option to the state's election laws, allowing residents to cast a vote by mail even if they were going to be in their registered voting precincts on Election Day.

"To have choices is such an incredible expansion of access for eligible voters to exercise their vote," Boockvar said.

And then the coronavirus hit the commonwealth. 

While Act 77 may have been enacted to improve access and increase voter turnout, Boockvar said the law has played an unexpected role in keeping voting safe during the  pandemic.

This election season, she has also been at the forefront of defending Pennsylvania's process and security.

Boockvar has had a prime role across the state as she explains and sometimes defends the process, including when President Donald Trump questioned the security of voting in Philadelphia with his now-famous "bad things" are happening in the city comments during the first debate. 

Boockvar assured residents they were not, explaining the law as it pertains to poll watchers. 

Advocate for voters

Boockvar was born on Staten Island and grew up on Long Island. She got her undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania and her law degree from the American University Washington College of Law.

Boockvar said she's always had an interest in voter rights in broad terms, but it wasn't until 2008 that she first took on defending voter rights professionally as an attorney.

She volunteered locally as a poll worker in the mid 2000s, a recurring role Boockvar said sparked a more focused interest in voter rights.

Boockvar said it was in 2007 she had gotten involved with a group of Bensalem voters who were protesting a polling place change near the Creekside apartment complex at 2500 Knight Road.

The county Board of Elections, comprised by the then Republican-controlled county commissioners, voted to move the site a mile away from the apartment complex to the Polish Army Veterans hall.

Residents claimed moving the polling place after 30 years at Creekside in the township's 5th Lower Middle voting precinct was done to suppress the Democratic vote in the area.

Boockvar said some of the residents had reached out to her for help for things like filing petitions opposing the move.

Eventually, the county compromised on a third location between the former location and the new one.

That change appears to have been temporary, as the veterans hall is currently listed as the polling place for Bensalem's 4th and 5th Lower Middle voting precincts.

It was around this same time Boockvar's husband, Jordan Yeager, saw a job posting for a voting rights attorney with the national nonprofit Advancement Project.

The two had opened their own law practice in Doylestown Borough about a decade prior, and Boockvar said the job posting came at the same time they were considering expanding.

"We were sort of at a moment in time where we were either going to have to expand our practice or hook in with another firm, so we were at a good time for contemplating change," Boockvar said.

One of the group's main issues was fighting voter suppression in low-income communities and communities of color, an issue she had now had a newfound appreciation for with Creekside.

While the position was in Washington D.C., Boockvar sent in her resume in case the project was looking for a Pennsylvania-based attorney.

The group hired Boockvar to be its senior voting rights attorney in Pennsylvania, a position she held for about three years.

"It was such a great experience; this was an organization where their whole mission is to help voters exercise their fundamental right to vote," Boockvar said.

Working with the state department

The job meant Boockvar was often in communication with the state department in a full-time voting rights capacity.

Yeager continued practicing law in Bucks County with another firm before being elected a Bucks County Court of Common Pleas judge in 2019.

After working at the nonprofit, Boockvar's career continued placing her in regular contact with the state department in various ways.

As a candidate in two state races, Boockvar had to file campaign finance reports and other election requirements overseen by the state department.

Boockvar ran for a seat on the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in 2011 and then as the Democratic challenger to late Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick in 2012 in what was then the state's 8th Congressional District.

Boockvar then took a position as executive director of the nonprofit Lifecycle WomanCare in Bryn Athyn, Montgomery County, one of the oldest continually operating birth centers in the country.

The state department oversees regulations on nonprofit and for-profit corporations, putting Boockvar again in a position that was directly affected by the agency.

"It's kind of like all of my roads converged at the Department of State," Boockvar said, looking back on her career path so far.

Boockvar didn't set out to become the head of one of the most involved departments of Pennsylvania's government, but it's where she ended up eventually.

Through her various positions over her career, Boockvar's name came back to Gov. Wolf in 2018 through an overlapping network of mutual colleagues.

"I often, when I talk to young folks, like to say, 'Make sure you never have blinders on or think that your life will be a straight path. 

"If I had thought there was a straight path I would have missed so many things throughout the last decade or decade and a half," she added.