HARRISBURG, PA – Pennsylvania has been the center of dispute since the general election with claims from President Trump and his supporters that the election results are inaccurate due to fraud.
Now, Republican members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are calling for an audit of the election results, to be handled by them.
Andrew Seidman tweeted on the move:
“Pa House GOP members tomorrow will ‘call for a legislative-led audit of the 2020 election and demand election results not be certified, nor electors be seated, until the audit is complete,’ per news release.”
Pa House GOP members tomorrow will “call for a legislative-led audit of the 2020 election and demand election results not be certified, nor electors be seated, until the audit is complete,” per news release.
— Andrew Seidman (@AndrewSeidman) November 9, 2020
Republican State Rep. Dawn Keefer said that the move doesn’t have as much to do with the outcome of the election, as with the “volume of inquiries” that legislators received about the overall election process in the state.
She was alluding to the decision by state officials and the courts to move the acceptance for mail-in ballots from the date of the election to up to three days afterwards.
The Talking Heads on cable News and Social Media are not talking about this audit.https://t.co/Ji5kv6rNYE
— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) November 8, 2020
In a letter, the Republican Speaker of the House, Bryan Cutler, explained the reasoning for the audit demand to Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf:
“For months, I, along with many members of the House of Representatives and Senate, have raised serious concerns relating to the administration of the election, specifically because this was the first full year Pennsylvanians would be able to use no-excuse absentee mail-in ballots.
“Unfortunately, some of the concerns that were previously raised have manifested into issues which cannot be overlooked.
“First, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unconstitutionally extended the deadline to receive late ballots and openly ignored the findings of fact and law that were issued by the Commonwealth Court.
“That issue is now being litigated at the United States Supreme Court. However, this judicial intervention created unnecessary chaos and uncertainty as to what constitutes a timely and lawfully cast vote.
“Second, your Secretary of State initiated another legal action in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to ‘clarify’ whether signatures on returned absentee and mail-in ballots could be reviewed for authenticity by counties during the pre-canvasing of ballots.
“Without permitting the House or Senate to intervene and defend the existing law, the Court unilaterally directed the county boards of elections to not reject absentee or mail-in ballots for counting, computing and tallying based on signature comparisons conducted by county election officials or employees, or as the result of third party challenges based on such comparisons.
“This, or course, is a significant departure from Pennsylvania law and practice, and it eliminated one of the most important security and anti-fraud features used with absentee and mail-in ballots.
It also treats voters who vote on Election Day in person different from those that used the absentee ballot or mail-in program…
“Further, poll watchers, which are the hallmark of our Election Day process to promote transparency and fairness, were unlawfully denied the opportunity to meaningfully observe the proceedings of all pre-canvass and canvassing activities…
“The uncertainty surrounding these interventions has cast an unnecessary cloud on a process – the election – that invites our people to question the results, regardless of which candidate or party may prevail.
“As such, and due directly to these issues (and any others that may arise), I am requesting that a full audit be conducted of the 2020 General Election prior to the certification of any results.”
Focus on Pa, Bill. Trump has tweeted message to GOP supporters to stage protests to pressure GOP legislators to appoint Trump-loyal elections. The run-up has begun, and it’s going to be dicey. https://t.co/FOFZWXmtan
— David Plymyer (@dplymyer) November 10, 2020
In response to the demands from state representatives, a spokeswoman for Wolf said that post-election audits are standard practice and will be conducted for this election. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman confirmed that audits occur after every election and this one would not be any different.
However, he had concerns for the legal actions that were taking place in the state and said:
“At this point, you’re grinding metal on metal. It’s not getting anything accomplished and it’s stopping us from coming together, whether you like the result or not.”
Preparing for a legal battle: Supreme Court orders late arriving ballots to be segregated
November 7, 2020
HARRISBURG, PA – During the disputed general election, President Donald Trump’s supporters are upset because ballots are still coming in past the deadline and being counted.
They are also upset that Republican poll watchers have reportedly been banned from watching the ballot counting.
Now, the Supreme Court has ordered that all late ballots received be segregated from the others, until a court decision has been made on their legitimacy.
ELECTION LATEST: https://t.co/sMGwawYsIr
— Georgia votes trickling in, Biden leads by 4,020
—SCOTUS orders all Pennsylvania counties to segregate late-arriving mail ballots
— Nevada judge denies GOP motion to halt signature machines, change observation rules— ABC News (@ABC) November 7, 2020
The number of ballots that are affected in the ruling is estimated to be somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered the move on Nov. 6 to have those ballots segregated, which insinuates that the Supreme Court may later rule to invalidate the late-arriving ballots.
The order by the Justice was only part of what Republicans wanted. They requested a full stop of the count of late ballots, which was not granted.
SCOTUS already rule on this. Ballots MUST BE POSTMARKED BY 8PM NOV 3 & RECV’D BU FRIDAY NOV 6 & MUST BE VALID TO BE COUNTED. ANY BALLOT “POSTMARKED” AFTER NOV 3 or RECV’D AFTER NOV 6 CANNOT BE COUNTED. https://t.co/VFRbvyXr3C
— Charon Heuer (@slipsntime) November 4, 2020
Ned Foley, a law professor at the Ohio State University, spoke about the move saying:
“This preserves the status quo until any further order of the Court, after the possibility of a response.
“It’s also significant in that it does not stop the counting of the segregated votes, but possible commingling of ballots that could not be undone later.”
Pennsylvania Republicans had attempted to stop the extended deadline, which the state approved in the last few months to prevent an issue like this from happening. The case made its way to the state Supreme Court, which upheld the state’s mail-in ballot due date extension.
Justice Alito orders PA to segregate late ballots amid claims this wasn’t done.
There have been statistical anomalies that defy belief and apparent rules violations by the left, so much so that millions say this election is irreparably compromised.https://t.co/g3OHjhbhX5
— Samantha Chang ♖ (@samantha_chang) November 7, 2020
Republicans then took the case to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case as they did not have enough time to review the arguments to make a decision that close to an election.
However, Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch, gave the impression that they believed the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court may have overstepped its constitutional authority over state elections.
The same group of Justices also implied that they may consider the Republican-led appeal after the election is over. If they do hear the appeal, four Justices (the majority) will have to be in agreement to grant or deny the appeal.
The issue behind the late date for the mail-in ballots is that Republicans claim it further enables democratic voters to skew the election in their favor.
The mindset is that there was widespread voter fraud and people were illegally casting mail-in ballots through various means.
Something that Republicans claim bolsters their position are the massive dumps of Biden votes that seemingly appeared overnight, which slowly picked away at the large lead President Trump had prior.
Claims of fraud were fueled when reports of a massive dump of Biden votes, over 130,000, had been received. People, accurately, said that this could well be a sign of voter fraud, as it would be statistically impossible for that many votes to appear all for one person.
Problem with this information, although it was reported from election officials in Shiawassee County, was allegedly nothing more than a typo. According to the New York Times, election clerk Abby Bowen said:
“All it was is there was an extra zero that got typed in.”
Once the error was discovered, it was corrected within 20 minutes of being posted. What the alleged accurate information was that Biden had received 15,371 votes, instead of the 153,710 votes that were inaccurately recorded.
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