A group of Republican lawmakers on Tuesday called for a legislative-led audit into last week’s presidential election to determine if Pennsylvania’s general election was conducted “fairly and lawfully.”
Saying it’s not about the election results but the process used to determine the outcome, the Republican lawmakers called for a bi-partisan investigatory committee with subpoena power to pursue this probe, said Rep. Dawn Keefer, R-York County.
Standing before nearly two dozen House Republicans who were joined by Sens. Kristen Phillips-Hill, R-York County, and Judy Ward, R-Blair County, Keefer said, “a number of very troubling issues have come to our collective attention in the aftermath of last Tuesday’s general election. As a result we have grave concerns regarding the future of the commonwealth.”
Keefer said their offices have been overwhelmed with calls from “confused and outraged” constituents questioning the process and they owe to them to take this step to “ensure public trust in our electoral system.”
She said lawmakers had no direct knowledge of any incidents of voter fraud, only allegations. But she said this proposed panel would be able to vet them to see if there was any validity to the claims.
Keefer said it is the group’s intention to have this committee formed immediately and complete its work before the legislative session ends on Nov. 30 and before state’s election results are certified, which counties are required to do by Nov. 23.
Rep. Seth Grove, R-York County, was appointed as acting majority chairman of the House State Government Committee to lead a House investigation into the 2020 election process to inform future elections.
A spokeswoman for the Department of State, which oversees the state’s elections, issued an email statement that maintains that the election was “free, fair and secure.”
“Millions of Pennsylvanians followed the rules allowed by the [U.S. Supreme Court] and each voter, regardless of political party, must have their voice heard. Allegations of fraud and illegal activity have been repeatedly debunked and dismissed by the courts. Those attacks against the core values of Americans are intended to undermine our democracy, and we must reject them,” said state department spokeswoman Wanda Murren in an emailed statement.
“Election officials at the state and local level, Republican and Democrat, worked tirelessly amid a pandemic so voters could decide this election,” her statement went on. “In Philadelphia, Allegheny County, and elsewhere, officials are administering the election with the highest degree of transparency. In Philadelphia and several other counties there has been a livestream of the ballot-counting process available for anyone to watch. In all counties all parties have canvass observers throughout the process. Any insinuation otherwise is a lie. Pennsylvania is going to fight every single attempt to disenfranchise voters. We will protect this election and the democratic process. Pennsylvania will count every vote, and we will protect the count of every vote.”
This call from the group of lawmakers for an audit comes on the heels of similar request that House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, Cutler made on Friday..
He sent a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf requesting a full audit before election results are certified. He, like the lawmakers who gathered in the Ryan Office Building in the Capitol Complex for their Tuesday morning news conference, cited a litany of inconsistencies as a result of court actions and the Department of State’s guidance to county election officials regarding the handling of defective ballots, among other issues, as to why an investigation was warranted.
Cutler’s spokesman Mike Straub said Cutler didn’t specify who he thought should conduct the audit.
House Democrats, meanwhile, do not see the need for an audit.
Bill Patton, a spokesman for the House Democrats, said the election rules were set in bipartisan-supported law passed a year ago and court rulings confirmed the procedures that were used to tally votes in this election. He accused the “small group of Republican legislators” of trying to disrupt the election even as military and overseas ballots were still coming in.
“Donald Trump lost the election fair and square,” Patton said. “This is a pathetic, partisan and desperate attempt to cloud people’s vision with more baseless claims for which there is no evidence whatsoever. There is no shame in losing an election, but there ought to be great shame in trying to subvert normal democratic processes on which this nation was founded.”
Rep. Barb Gleim, R-Cumberland County, said afterward that the historic number of mailed and provisional votes that were cast in last week’s election were unlike anything seen in Pennsylvania before. Given that, “why wouldn’t we want to measure that?” she said. “Why wouldn’t you want to give the public the confidence that the change worked. That’s where I come in. I really feel we owe it to the public to let them know if this process worked. Because if it didn’t, we need to change it.”
Responding to a question as to whether the audit’s findings could impact the selection of presidential electors, Keefer said, “Once we see the findings then we can determine what the course of action will be.”
That issue has been a source of controversy even before the election with some suggesting the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature may stray from tradition and take it upon itself to choose a slate of presidential electors to cast the state’s votes for Trump despite the popular vote.
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, said his understanding is that Pennsylvania law requires the popular vote to be certified and forwarded to the federal government, with lawmakers having no role in the process.
There are 52,998 mail-in votes and 100,000-plus provisional ballots to be reviewed and counted., according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.
Biden has won about 75% of the ballots cast by mail. The majority of mail ballots were requested by Democrats. The bulk of Republican voters chose to cast their ballots in person.