Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, rallied with several dozen supporters outside the state Capitol on Monday to call for a “forensic audit” of Virginia’s electoral process. Since the November election former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters have continued to promote debunked or unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that election officials and courts have rejected. Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in Virginia by 10 percentage points. “It’s so imperative that we make 100% sure that voters have 100% confidence in our election process,” Chase said at the Capitol Monday speaking in front of perhaps two dozen supporters holding homemade signs. “It’s important that we audit Virginia. It’s important we have a forensic audit, not the faux audit that the State Board of Elections did.” Chase said that when the General Assembly makes decisions Virginians need to know that “these people are elected by we the people” and that the decisions they make “are what the people want.” In March the Virginia Department of Elections said that election administrators around the state had completed an audit of ballot scanner machines used in the November elections in which Biden defeated Trump and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., beat Republican Daniel Gade.
National: New spotlight on secretaries of state as electoral battlegrounds | Reid Wilson/The Hill
Democrats and Republicans are preparing to pour millions of dollars into races for secretary of state in half the states next year amid a new recognition that those who oversee the electoral process can play pivotal roles in deciding an election’s outcome. The focus follows former President Trump’s pressure campaign on state leaders to overturn the results of last year’s election, and as Republican-controlled state legislatures advance and pass electoral reform bills that would limit access to absentee ballots, drop boxes and other avenues to voting. “These offices used to be kind of sleepy offices, they were personality contests and the people who ran for them were paper-pushers,” said Michael Adams (R), Kentucky’s secretary of state and the vice chair of the Republican Secretaries of State Committee, a group that will back GOP candidates. “We’re going to be uniquely a focus in a way that we never have been before. Our side is going to be prepared for that.” Candidates are already drawing battle lines in contests that will determine which party controls the electoral experience voters will face in the next presidential election.
Full Article: New spotlight on secretaries of state as electoral battlegrounds | TheHill