Pennsylvania: Taxpayers footed the bill for election lawsuits. Costs went into the millions | Julia Agos/WITF
Two weeks after the 2020 presidential election was called for Democrat Joe Biden, and as President Donald Trump sought to overturn the results, Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey issued a statement accepting Biden’s win. The Keystone State’s 20 electoral votes handed Biden the White House. But they had become the target of an unprecedented effort by Trump and his allies to reverse what his Justice Department and eventually over 60 legal decisions would confirm was a free and fair election. On Nov. 21, U.S. Middle District Court Judge Matthew Brann, who is a member of the conservative Federalist Society, had just tossed out the Trump campaign’s efforts to invalidate all 7 million of Pennsylvania’s votes. Toomey, who voted for Trump, had seen enough. “President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in Pennsylvania,” Toomey wrote. Four days later, Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican from Butler County and a fervent Trump backer, filed a lawsuit challenging Act 77, which allowed for no-excuse mail voting. Almost every Republican lawmaker voted yes when the state legislature passed it in 2019. Kelly was asking that all 2.5 million mail in votes be invalidated.
Full Article: Taxpayers footed Pa.’s bill for election lawsuits. Costs went into the millions | WITF