Butler County Democratic Committee chairwoman Catherine Lalonde said she arrived at the group's booth at the Zelienople Country Fall Festival on Sunday to find it vandalized.

Members of the Butler County Democratic Committee returned to their tent at the Zelienople Country Fall Festival on Sunday morning to see a scene that resembled storm wreckage.

Catherine Lalonde, chairwoman of the committee, said at first she assumed the flipped table and ripped tent and signs were caused by natural events.

“The tent had been slashed, candidate signs are slashed, our papers were all thrown around,” Lalonde said. “I thought at first there was extensive storm damage, but I realized there wasn't much of a storm.”

Matthew Edwards, interim director of the festival, filed a report with the Zelienople Police Department, saying that the Democratic committee's tent had been vandalized overnight. Seeing that no other booth took any damage overnight Saturday, Edwards said it

“It was clearly someone with some major intent because they left the front alone so it wouldn't appear damaged. Nothing else was damaged, so it seems to have been a targeted thing.”

The Zelienople fall festival took place Saturday and Sunday throughout Main Street and Four Corners Park. Lalonde said the Democratic committee was scheduled to be there both days.

“We were giving out information about the election, just being present,” Lalonde said about Saturday. “We had voter registration forms, anyone who wanted a registration form we gave them one, it doesn't matter what party.”

Edwards said this is the first year he has been involved in the festival, but this vandalism surprised him, having worked with the Zelienople-Harmony Horse Trading Days.

“I've been involved with that seven years, and it's never happened,” Edwards said.

Edwards also said vendors are made aware of the open-air nature of the festival, but even still he didn't expect there to be any damage issues.

“We're not a contained space, it's an open street festival,” Edwards said. “We have some extra patrols by the police.”

Police are investigating the vandalism of the tent, but Lalonde said Sunday she was still preparing to open the booth for the day Sunday.

She said she was unsure if the investigation would be fruitful, considering that the booth was located in the park near a lot of tree cover, but the police were looking into the incident.

“Police were going to check with some businesses around to see if they have cameras that caught anything,” Lalonde said of the police.