UPDATE: Bad blood between siblings spills over at polling place

By Matt Snyder
Herald Staff Writer

GREENE TOWNSHIP November 03, 2009 09:49 pm

— A family feud broke out into the polling precincts Tuesday in Greene Township, when one man – along with his nephew – campaigned against his own brother due to a civil matter.
Jon Pollitt, 51, Meadville, held up a sign that read “Pollitt evicting his 89 year old mother,” along with his nephew Dan Thomas’s sign, “Bob Pollitt evicting marine mom.”
But the candidate, Herbert “Bob” R. Pollitt Jr., 53, Greene Township, said that’s an unfair characterization.
There is a civil dispute over a house, Herbert Pollitt said, and his attorney did send his mother a quitclaim deed. But, he says, that’s a complicated civil matter pending in Crawford County. It involves a dispute among his siblings, including his sister, over who owns the home.
Herbert Pollitt says the entire civil suit doesn’t involve Greene Township or Mercer County. He said his brother is trying to unfairly demonize him in front of the community.
But Jon Pollitt said he just doesn’t think his brother has the character for public office.
Neither man delved very deeply into the details of the undecided civil dispute. Jon Pollitt did say his mother is a former and decorated member of the Marine Corps.
Sheriff’s deputies and a representative with the district attorney’s office made a pass through Greene Township early in the morning, Jon Pollitt said, just to make sure there were no fisticuffs. But it was quiet, and he said his brother only swung by at one point to take a photo of their placard-holding.
Jon Pollitt said he cleared his activities with the district attorney’s office and Mercer County Elections Office beforehand.

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