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A group of state GOP lawmakers challenging the Nov. 3 election result is pursuing a “forensic investigation” even as their efforts to reach a resolution to overturn Pennsylvania’s electoral certification have failed.
The 26 Republican state officials, including Daryl Metcalfe, Eric Nelson, Eric Davanzo and Cris Dush in western Pennsylvania, drafted the draft resolution on Friday after lawyers for President Donald Trump made unsubstantiated allegations electoral fraud at a Senate Majority Political Committee hearing in Gettysburg. .
However, Republican House leaders refused to allow additional time to consider the proposed resolution. The legislative session ended on Monday, as scheduled.
Officials said the chamber did not have time to consider new resolutions, each due to be considered for three days, before adjourning. Additionally, House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff and Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman told the Center Daily Times that the Legislature “does not and will not have a hand. in the choice of the presidential voters of the state, or in the decision of the result of the presidential election ”, and that the votes of its electoral college will be allocated to the winner of the popular vote according to the law.
Their decision to adjourn without considering the proposed resolution marked the most recent setback for a host of unsuccessful general election challenges here and across the country.
Arizona officials certified the election results there on Monday, officially declaring Biden the winner by 10,500 votes. This news came as Trump’s lawyers there argued without evidence that the election was marred by widespread voter fraud.
In Pennsylvania, Nelson, the Hempfield Republican who joined the unsuccessful resolution effort to withdraw voter certification in Pennsylvania, said his group planned to release a report soon. He said this would document “significant irregularities with postal ballots between November 3 and November 4”.
Nelson, who previously said he knew of counties that had more mail in the ballots than they sent, admitted that similar allegations by Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani during the hearing of Gettysburg falsely confused requests for a postal vote from the primary in June with the vote in November. general election when he asserted that more ballots were counted than sent.
Nonetheless, Nelson insisted that there were significant irregularities in the ballots in Allegheny, Philadelphia and Delaware counties, and his group compared the number of ballots in the mail to the number of ballots in the mail. envelopes received.
“We have major issues that need to be resolved before the election results are finally certified,” Nelson said. “My goal is fair, honest and accurate elections.”
Election experts have repeatedly claimed that there was no evidence of election fraud that saw Trump lose the White House even as Republicans in statewide races won important victories.
“We have paper ballots for every ballot cast in the election. This idea that there are results somewhere that are not what we see being certified is not a reality, ”said Christopher Deluzio, policy director at the Center for Law, Policy and Cyber Security at the University of Pittsburgh.
“What they say in the public sphere, whether on social media and these audiences, is very different from what they put in their legal documents. They can make these widespread allegations, but they don’t make them in court, ”said Deluzio, a lawyer who has studied electoral issues.
Nor does it appear that they made a sufficient case for a bipartisan panel in Pennsylvania to answer their questions about the election outcome.
In a rare move last week, the bipartisan legislative committee on budget and finance rejected a House resolution calling for it to conduct a statistical review of the conduct of elections.
The state’s Supreme Court on Saturday dismissed a lower court ruling stopping certification of election results pending a hearing on a challenge to the constitutionality of the 2019 Postal Voting Act. the state. In a unanimous decision, the High Court ruled that the trial of Congressman Mike Kelly, R-Butler and several other Republicans had been filed long after the expiration date of those arguments. Kelly had asked the court to reject 2.5 million mail-in ballots cast under the law or to decertify the election results and ask the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to choose presidential voters from Pennsylvania.
The move came a day after the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal from the Trump campaign seeking to overturn election results based on complaints that observers in Philadelphia and County D ‘Allegheny did not have adequate access to the tally.
Norman Eisen, external legal advisor for the Voter Protection Program, a non-partisan electoral integrity group, said there was no history of withdrawal of electoral certifications in the United States.
“The truth is, it was actually one of the most error-free, secure, and best presidential elections the United States has ever had,” Eisen said. “And it’s all the more astonishing that this was the case because it happened amid a pandemic, vastly expanded postal voting, attacks by the president and questionable activities of his person appointed to the post.
Deb Erdley is editor-in-chief of Tribune-Review. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, [email protected] or via Twitter .
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Election | Local | Pennsylvania | Political election | Top stories | Westmoreland
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