Two and half weeks before the midterm elections, with political tempests seeming to break out everywhere, there’s one dispute brewing at the opposite end of the state that has captured our attention. The organizer of a teachers initiative to register Philadelphia’s 12,000 high school students who are eligible to vote is denying accusations from the right that they’re indoctrinating their students to the Democratic cause, in violation of public school policy.

Two weeks ago, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, Valentino DiGiorgio, accused Thomas Quinn, a social studies teacher at Philadelphia Central High School, of “liberal indoctrination.” Quinn is accused of distributing literature that attacks positions and policies of the Republican Party and the Trump administration.

DiGiorgio, an alumnus of Philly Central, said a former classmate forwarded to him a copy of the fliers that were distributed to students by Quinn’s group, Philly Youth Vote.DiGiorgio provided a digital image of the flier as evidence. It urges people to vote for a long list of reasons, including “VOTE to stop Republican voter suppression” and “VOTE to stop the Trump regime.”

Quinn denied the charge Wednesday in an essay published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He says the only papers distributed to students by his organization was voter registration forms.

It turns out that the flier DiGiorgio identified was not a flier at all; rather, it’s a cropped close-up of a political poster, one of several posters arranged on a bulletin board in a school staff office, representing multiple political views. Quinn explained in Wednesday’s Inquirer piece that it “was actually a cropped photo of a poster that hung in a staff office that had other political materials, including a 2018 Ronald Reagan tribute calendar and a Black Lives Matter poster.” Next to the Reagan calendar “was a pro-Trump piece that featured the MAGA slogan.”

A digital image accompanies Quinn’s essay supporting his claim. Specifically, Quinn’s photo is evidence that DiGiorgio’s “flier” is not a flier, but a poster. It doesn’t prove where the bulletin board is displayed, who has access to it, when it was assembled or even whether it has administration approval, as Quinn suggests.

But none of that matters, nor should it. Quinn’s organization of teachers is innocent of the allegation brought up by the Republican leader because they proved the specific allegation was unfounded. This does not enhance or negate the tendency of educators or young voters to embrace or repel the ideals of any political party.

Neither does it matter that Republican Party chief DiGiorgio might have been thoroughly convinced he was right — that the teachers were indeed indoctrinating students to the liberal cause. The is no evidence to support his specific allegation. There is no evidence to support any specific allegation — and yet suspicions persist. Persistent suspicion is the nature of politics these days.

It’s more than a little reminiscent of the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that likewise involved unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct. In that case, it was the Democrats who were convinced of impropriety but whose case could not be proved by the evidence.