It doesn’t take long to find the stories about us. Erie County’s politics are making a lot of headlines. 

Reporters from around the world are doing stories about how important Erie County is in the election. 

A crew from the Tokyo Broadcasting System in Japan was here last week.

Megumi Ritchie, an associate producer with the network, said she didn’t know much about Erie until this summer. That’s when she met a man from the area at the Republican National Convention. 

“I thought there was an Erie in New York but I had never heard of an Erie in Pennsylvania,” she said.

Their recent assignment in Erie was a story about early voting. 

One of their interviews was with Erie County Clerk Karen Chillcott. It was not her first interview. 

NBC, CNN and The New York Times were some of the organizations she’s spoken with.

They’ve been asking her mostly about one thing: election security.

Questions have included: “Have we received death threats? Has there been intimidation? How do we feel about election day? Are poll workers going to be discouraged from showing up at the polls on election day?” she said.

Her team has been working overtime to prepare. 

“We don’t really have a lot of time to be concerned about…the overall impact and all of the eyes and attention on Erie County,” she said.

We have a job to do and we want to do it well.”