Topline
Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania kicked off their controversial investigation into the 2020 election Thursday with a heated Senate committee hearing, at which the ranking Democrat criticized the audit as a “sham” meant to erode trust in democracy, whilethe GOP lawmaker overseeing the probe insisted it’s merely an information-gathering operation.
Protesters gather on the steps of the State Capital on November 05, 2020 in Harrisburg, ... [+]
Key Facts
Pennsylvania state Sen. Cris Dush, a Republican who is heading the investigation, led the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee hearing Thursday, along with the committee’s Democratic minority chair, Sen. Anthony Williams.
Dush claimed the committee has jurisdiction to oversee elections and said the probe would “gather and study” information about the 2020 election in order to clarify existing “ambiguit[ies]” in the state’s election laws.
Williams slammed the probe as a “tragic charade,” saying it was not about “gathering information,” but rather “one part of an ongoing national attack on our electoral system.”
Williams also said the investigation went against the Senate’s rules because the committee does not have any oversight or subpoena power when it comes to election-related matters, as Dush claimed, and the committee was acting “recklessly” and “with only political motive in mind.”
The committee’s pursuit of the audit could result in it becoming a “super committee” that has “no checks, and no balances, and no limits,” Williams warned.
The hearing also featured testimony from Fulton County board of commissioners chair Stewart Ulsh, who criticized the burden the state’s policies put on the county and the Pennsylvania Secretary of State decertifying the county’s voting machines after it turned them over to a third party as part of a separate election audit—but said that audit did not actually reveal any fraud.
Crucial Quote
Dush said the investigation was not about former Donald Trump or overturning the 2020 election results, saying “the horse was out of the barn as far as this investigation is concerned.” He claimed it was devoted to “looking intensely into the general election held in November 2020 and the primary election in May 2021 to evaluate [how] our election code is working.”
Chief Critic
“What is happening here is a travesty, plain and simple,” Williams said during his opening remarks Thursday. “This sham review is not the pursuit of transparency. The goal is, simply, to stoke distrust and division…and the most exasperating part of it all is that everyone on this panel knows this. We know this, and you know this, and yet here we sit.”
What To Watch For
Pennsylvania Republicans have said they plan to conduct a “full forensic investigation” and are expected to issue subpoenas and have a third-party vendor examine election materials, echoing the controversial election audit in Maricopa County, Arizona. Any subpoenas could face legal challenges, however, as Williams noted Thursday he does not believe the committee has the power to issue election-related subpoenas. Pennsylvania Senate Pro Tempore Jake Corman and his office have said the state is also likely to seek testimony from Pennsylvania citizens that claim to have experienced election fraud and compel testimony from county and state election officials, Reuters reports. Corman has reportedly rejected calls to employ the highly controversial firm Cyber Ninjas running the Arizona audit and will choose a different third-party company to oversee the probe, Reuters reports, and unlike the Arizona audit, it is expected to be funded by the state Senate rather than private donations.
Key Background
The Pennsylvania state government and county governments have already undertaken audits that have affirmed the state’s election results, and there is no evidence of any widespread fraud. A slew of post-election lawsuits seeking to overturn the results in the state \overwhelmingly failed. The Pennsylvania audit effort was initially started in July by state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who asked three Pennsylvania counties to voluntarily turn over their election materials and threatened subpoenas if they did not. The counties refused to turn over their equipment and the Pennsylvania secretary of state said the state would decertify the voting machines of any county that did, and officials in conservative-leaning Tioga County called on Mastriano to “withdraw his demands and to let responsible Republicans get back to work.” As a result of the controversy, Corman kicked Mastriano off the audit effort and replaced him with Dush, saying Mastriano “was only ever interested in politics and showmanship and not actually getting things done.”
Tangent
The Pennsylvania audit is part of a broader nationwide effort by the GOP to launch moreArizona-style audits. The Biden administration has warned such investigations could violate federal law. Another partisan audit is getting under way in Wisconsin, where a Republican state lawmaker has subpoenaed several counties for their voting materials.he counties have rejected the subpoenas on the grounds that they were not signed by other leaders in the state Assembly as required by law.
Further Reading
Pennsylvania Republicans kick-start 2020 election review with hearing (Reuters)
Pennsylvania Election Audit To Start This Week After ‘Grandstanding’ GOP Senator Fired From Probe (Forbes)
