Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania: Tioga County won’t offer up voting machines to GOP election audit | Marc Levy/Associated Press

One of three counties targeted by a Pennsylvania state lawmaker for an Arizona-style “forensic investigation” of the state’s 2020 presidential election sought by former President Donald Trump will not allow third-party access to its voting machines. The three commissioners in rural Republican-controlled Tioga County announced the decision Tuesday, six days after receiving a sweeping, five-page request from Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano for access to documents, information and equipment. The county’s solicitor, Christopher Gabriel, said Wednesday that the thrust of Mastriano’s request — under the threat of a subpoena — involves access to Tioga County’s voting machines. That could mean losing those machines, Gabriel said. “We can’t be in a position where we don’t have the election machines, because we have to run the next election, these are extremely expensive machines and our position is we need to follow the direction that (Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid) has given us,” Gabriel said. Degraffenreid, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s top election official, told counties last week that the state would decertify any election equipment that is subject to any such third-party access, rendering it useless in an election.

Full Article: County won’t offer up voting machines to election audit

Pennsylvania Department of State directs counties not to turn over election equipment | John Finnerty/CNHI News Service

Two days after state Sen. Doug Mastriano announced that he’s requesting that three counties turn over election materials and equipment for a “forensic investigation,” the Department of State on Friday directed counties to refuse any requests for access to voting equipment by third-party groups. Acting Secretary of State Veronica W. Degraffenreid issued a directive prohibiting third-party access to electronic voting systems, addressing requests that counties allow outside entities not involved with the conduct of elections to review and copy the internal electronic, software, mechanical, logic, and related components of Pennsylvania’s voting systems. “Such access by third parties undermines chain of custody requirements and strict access limitations necessary to prevent both intentional and inadvertent tampering with electronic voting systems,” Degraffenreid said. “It also jeopardizes the security and integrity of the systems and will prevent electronic voting system vendors from affirming that the systems continue to meet Commonwealth security standards and U.S. Election Assistance Commission certification.” Mastriano, a Republican from Franklin County, sent his request to the boards of elections in Philadelphia, Tioga and York counties, directing them to turn over all cast ballots and balloting materials from the November 2020 general election and the May 2021 primary. The request also included unprecedented access to electronic voting equipment. Mastriano, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump who attended the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was one of three state Republican lawmakers who traveled to Arizona to view the election audit commissioned by the Senate Republicans in that state. The others who made the Arizona trip were state Sen. Cris Dush of Indiana County and state Rep. Rob Kauffman of Franklin County.

Full Article: Department of State directs counties not to turn over election equipment | News | meadvilletribune.com

Editorial: Pennsylvania Governor Wolf is right, election audit plan is a sham | Philadelphia Tribune

Gov. Tom Wolf says it is a “disgrace to democracy” that a Republican state lawmaker is trying to launch what he calls a “forensic investigation” of Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election, similar to what is happening in Arizona. Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, an ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump and a likely gubernatorial candidate, sent letters last week to officials in Philadelphia, York and Tioga Counties seeking election-related equipment and materials “needed to conduct a forensic investigation” of the 2020 election and the 2021 primary. “We’re looking at three counties, and if sufficient evidence comes up with shenanigans and corruption or fraud, then we’ll have a second round with additional counties,” he said on the far-right, pro-Trump cable network OAN. Philadelphia officials confirmed that the city received the letter. Mastriano’s sweeping request includes election-related materials such as ballots, mail ballot applications, mail ballot envelopes, voting machines, ballot scanners, vote-counting equipment, ballot production equipment, poll books, and computer equipment used throughout the election process. Mastriano warns in his letter that the Senate committee he heads may issue subpoenas if counties don’t respond by July 31 with a plan to comply.

Full Article: EDITORIAL: Wolf is right, election audit plan is a sham | Editorials | phillytrib.com

Pennsylvania election results will stay delayed after Republican lawmaker rules out pre-canvassing | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Long waits for Pennsylvania election results are here to stay. The point person on election issues for state House Republicans says he’s done considering election legislation until 2023, after Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf last week vetoed the bill he wrote. “It is over until we get a new governor,” Rep. Seth Grove (R., York), chair of the House State Government Committee and author of the proposed Republican election overhaul, said in an interview late last week. That would leave the state’s election system effectively unchanged for next year’s nationally watched open-seat races for governor and U.S. Senate. And it leaves local elections officials in both parties across Pennsylvania without the two things they have consistently pleaded for: earlier processing of mail ballots, which would avoid prolonged vote counts as the world saw last year, and an extension of tight mail-ballot deadlines that don’t align with Postal Service standards and leave thousands of voters unable to return them on time. “We’ll still be in the same boat. We’ll just use the same paddles to row further,” said Karen Barsoum, the Chester County elections director. “It’s unfortunate that there were clear areas that could have been improved upon, that we had basically the whole year to prepare for the next big election.”

Full Article: Pennsylvania election results will stay delayed after Republican lawmaker rules out pre-canvassing

Pennsylvania Governor says Matriano’s election audit plan a ‘disgrace to democracy’ | Associated Press

Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday said it is a “disgrace to democracy” that a Republican state lawmaker is trying to launch what he calls a “forensic investigation” of Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election, similar to what is happening in Arizona. Wolf, a Democrat, said on Twitter that the “sham election audit” being attempted by Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano is also a “profound waste of time and taxpayer money,” in addition to being a disgrace. Meanwhile on Thursday, Wolf’s administration issued a directive to counties, warning that they should not provide access for third parties to copy or examine state-certified electronic voting systems and election management systems or components. Wolf’s administration told counties that it would decertify any election equipment that is subject to any such third-party access, rendering it useless in an election, and that the state would not reimburse a county for the cost to replace the equipment.

Full Article: Election audit plan a ‘disgrace to democracy,’ governor says

Pennsylvania: Trump ally raises 2020 election audit plan | Mark Levy and Mark Scolford/Associated Press

Following in the footsteps of Arizona’s Senate Republicans, Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Senate is considering an investigation into how last year’s presidential election was conducted, a quest fueled by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that fraud was behind his loss in the battleground state. Any Senate-issued subpoenas for an Arizona-style “election audit” will face strident opposition from Democrats, legal questions and almost certainly challenges in Pennsylvania’s courts, as battles over election laws rage through swing states and Congress, spurred on by Trump’s falsehoods. Senate Republicans have been mostly silent about their internal deliberations. Sen. Doug Mastriano, a rising force in Pennsylvania’s ultra-conservative circles who has talked of his desire to bring an Arizona-style audit to Pennsylvania, led a private briefing Wednesday for Republican senators on his plan. In Arizona, the state Senate used its subpoena power to take possession of more than 2 million ballots and the machines that counted them, along with computer data. Mastriano also solicited legal advice from a Philadelphia-based law firm about the Senate Republican caucus using private money to finance consultants and lawyers. The law firm’s response letter, dated Tuesday, was obtained by The Associated Press. In the letter, the law firm discussed the legality of using money from a private, nonprofit organization “to pay expenses for vendors, including a consultant and counsel” as part of an “oversight investigation” of the 2020 election led by the low-profile committee that Mastriano chairs.

Full Article: Trump ally in Pennsylvania raises 2020 election audit plan

Pennsylvania’s election audit moves follow the partisan playbook | Chris DeLuzio/The Hill

In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, across the country, we saw radical efforts to spread lies about voter fraud, attack voting rights and overturn the results of the presidential election. These attempts are grounded in dishonesty and naked partisan self-interest, often relying on bad faith, pretextual arguments about election security. Pennsylvania Republicans’ latest bid to create a…

Pennsylvania: Election-related lawsuits that failed on standing or evidence still left counties with huge legal bills | Julia Agos/WITF

In the months leading up to the 2020 election, county officials pleaded with the Republican-controlled state legislature to allow pre-canvassing before Election Day and to clarify procedures with mail-in ballots and dropboxes. “We don’t want Pennsylvania to become a national news story,” the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania tweeted back in September. Administrators worried the gray areas in election procedure would leave counties vulnerable to attacks and accusations. And that’s exactly what happened. Pennsylvania counties and the Department of State became the target of unprecedented litigation before and after the election that resulted in extensive legal fees.

Full Article: Election-related lawsuits that failed on standing or evidence still left Pa. counties with huge legal bills | WITF

Pennsylvania Republicans Look To Evade A Veto And Enact Voter ID By Ballot Measure | Katie Meyer/NPR

Facing a veto on their sweeping plan to overhaul state election laws, Pennsylvania Republicans have set in motion a plan to circumvent the Democratic governor and create a mandatory voter ID requirement. They aim to do it via an amendment to the state constitution — a process that requires approval from the Legislature and subsequent victory on a statewide ballot measure. Critics say it’s a technique that Republicans appear increasingly willing to use as they clash with Gov. Tom Wolf over highly politicized issues such as voting and the pandemic. “The Republicans don’t want to go through the legislative process for their far-right wacky ideas because they know the governor will veto it,” Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes said. “So now they’re just going to change the constitution.” But GOP supporters of the tactic argue that approval by a majority of Pennsylvania voters would signal that an idea has merit. “If that’s a veto no matter what, that’s why we have a constitutional amendment, to let the voters decide,” said Republican Jake Corman, the Senate president pro tempore. “And they will ultimately make the final decision on whether there should be voter ID in Pennsylvania.” Still, Democrats see political gamesmanship. Hughes, who voted against the amendment when it passed the state Senate last week on near party lines, has served in the Legislature for decades. He said he has seen a lot of procedural tricks during his time in Harrisburg, but this one strikes him as a new development.

Full Article: GOP Wants To Add Voter ID To The Pennsylvania Constitution : NPR

Pennsylvania Republicans say the new budget funds a new election audit bureau. Democrats say no way. | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

The bipartisanship didn’t even last a day. Pennsylvania lawmakers reached a state budget deal with the governor Friday — and by Saturday, Democrats and Republicans were already disagreeing over one small but politically charged item. The fight, of course, concerned one of the most heated topics these days in Harrisburg and elsewhere: elections. It’s not in the legislative text, but Republicans who control the General Assembly say the roughly $40 billion budget includes extra money for the state Auditor General’s Office, with the understanding that it will fund a new Bureau of Election Audits. Democrats say there’s no such agreement, even informally, and that they oppose a new audit bureau. While they await the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, lawmakers are fighting over the basic facts of a bipartisan agreement they just struck. “I do not trust that the increased funding … will be used on legitimate audits in the public interest, but rather on the continuation of partisan witch hunts that damage our political process and besmirch the integrity of the men and women of our county elections’ offices,” State Sen. Sharif Street (D., Philadelphia) wrote Monday in a letter to Wolf calling on him to veto the added money. Wolf can decrease specific items in the budget, removing what Republicans say is informally earmarked for creating an audit bureau.

Full Article: Pennsylvania budget deal sparks partisan fight over proposed election audit bureau

As Pennsylvania House advances doomed election overhaul, Senate GOP charts different course to voter ID, other changes | Marie Albiges/Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pennsylvania House passed an election overhaul bill Tuesday that creates stricter voter ID requirements and early voting in 2025, despite opposition from most Democrats and a promised veto from Gov. Tom Wolf. The state Senate is poised to take up the measure in the coming days, but Republican lawmakers in the chamber are charting a separate path that would advance the priorities of county election officials while putting stricter voter ID requirements on a future ballot. The topic has emerged as a partisan sticking point in Harrisburg. Currently, only first-time voters and those casting ballots at a new polling precinct are required to show ID. Roughly three-quarters of respondents to a recent Franklin & Marshall College poll of Pennsylvania voters said they favor requiring all voters to show photo ID. Democrats call any new such ID restrictions “voter suppression,” while Republicans say it makes elections more secure. The reality is more complicated, with a 2019 study showing such laws don’t reduce already-rare fraud or voter turnout. House lawmakers spent more than three hours Tuesday debating Rep. Seth Grove’s 150-page election bill, which also places limits on drop boxes; requires more comprehensive audits of ballots, machines, and processes; and calls for the state to reimburse each county for electronic poll books.

Full Article: As Pa. House advances doomed election overhaul, Senate GOP charts different course to voter ID, other changes

Pennsylvania House advances bill to reform elections, including voter ID requirement | Ford Turner/The Morning Call

The Republican-dominated Pennsylvania House on Monday advanced a bill to change many facets of the state elections — including inserting a requirement that photo IDs be shown at polling places — and set up the potential for a final vote in the chamber Tuesday. Ahead of the move, Republicans were heartened by a poll that showed support for photo ID and a drop in the approval for the bill’s leading opponent, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. Lehigh County Republican Rep. Gary Day believed the poll would give the election reform effort a boost. “The governor has been disconnected from the people,” Day said. “He held autocratic authority too long and doesn’t seem to be able to control the political operatives in his administration.” The Monday move by the House, referred to as “second consideration,” included some debate on amendments in which House Democrats continued to lambaste the Republican effort. Democratic Leader Joanna McClinton of Philadelphia said it took the state in the wrong direction. Rep. Margo Davidson of Delaware County withdrew some proposed amendments in order, she said, to hasten the bill to a veto by Wolf.

Full Article: Pennsylvania House advances bill to reform elections, including voter ID requirement – The Morning Call

Pennsylvania Governor says GOP’s election bill is ‘driven by fringe conspiracy theories’ as lawmakers crash event | Andrew Seidman/Philadelphia Inquirer

The battle to shape public opinion over Pennsylvania Republicans’ proposed election overhaul intensified Thursday, as Gov. Tom Wolf called it an attack on voting rights and GOP lawmakers crashed an event in the Philadelphia suburbs to demand he negotiate. Democrats have blasted the proposal as the latest effort by GOP-controlled legislatures across the country to appease former President Donald Trump and effectively codify his lies about a stolen election into law. “Make no mistake, leaders of the [state] House Republican caucus are being driven by fringe conspiracy theories, and that is no way to make good policy,” Wolf said during a morning appearance in Delaware County. Republicans call the bill an important, top-to-bottom upgrade of an election code that dates to 1937, parts of which were revised in a major 2019 law that greatly expanded mail voting. They say it would modernize elections, improve accessibility, and make them more secure. State Rep. Seth Grove (R., York), chairman of the House State Government Committee and the bill’s author, came with other GOP colleagues to Wolf’s news conference in Media. He labeled the argument that “election reform is suppression” as Democrats’ own “Big Lie” — a play on how Democrats have branded Republicans’ false election claims.

Full Article: Pennsylvania Republicans’ election bill sparks fight between Gov. Tom Wolf, State Rep. Seth Grove

Pennsylvania Republicans eye voter ballot referendums to get past Tom Wolf vetoes | Marc Levy/Associated Press

Republicans who control Pennsylvania’s Legislature are increasingly looking to voter referendums to get around Gov. Tom Wolf and make policy that the Democrat cannot block with his veto pen. On Friday, Republicans unveiled a proposed constitutional amendment to expand Pennsylvania’s existing voter identification requirements, both for in-person voting and for mail ballots. Republicans also plan to introduce another proposal for a statewide referendum to repeal Pennsylvania’s expansive mail voting law that passed in 2019 with near-unanimous support from Republicans. Both have also been introduced as legislation, and Wolf has vowed to oppose both, seeing them as attacks on voting access spurred by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election. “So the governor’s going to veto that,” one of the sponsors, State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin), told the audience Friday at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, an annual conservative gathering. ”Aha! But the lesson from last year was we’ll then do a ballot question and I think any issue of how our election is conducted in Pennsylvania should be your decision in the end.” The lesson, it seems, was in last month’s primary election, when voters approved two Republican-penned proposals to greatly expand the power of lawmakers over a governor’s disaster emergency declarations. A governor cannot block a ballot question to change the constitution from going to voters.

Full Article: Pennsylvania Republicans eye voter ballot referendums to get past Tom Wolf vetoes

Pennsylvania Republicans’ proposed election overhaul includes stricter voter ID, in-person early-voting | Jonathan Lai and Marie Albiges/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania Republicans proposed a sweeping overhaul of the state’s election system Thursday, with lawmakers in the state House calling for stricter voter identification requirements, in-person early voting, signature verification of mail ballots, and other major changes. State Rep. Seth Grove (R., York), chair of the House State Government Committee and House Republicans’ point person for election legislation, introduced the bill after months of hearings with elections administrators, experts, and voting-rights activists. The legislation is sure to draw intense scrutiny and faces steep obstacles as GOP leaders, who control both chambers of the legislature, try to keep their party unified while also winning the approval of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. For example, Republicans have long pushed stricter voter ID rules, saying they would prevent fraud. But there’s no evidence of widespread fraud, especially involving fake identities, and such rules can raise barriers for low-income and older voters, among others. Wolf said earlier this week that new voter ID requirements would be a nonstarter. A Wolf spokesperson on Thursday called the bill “an extremist proposal” meant to undermine trust in elections and make voting more difficult. Election administration has become a highly charged political issue in Harrisburg and across the country, with Democrats accusing Republicans of seeking to weaponize election rules to disenfranchise voters. Several GOP-controlled legislatures have sought to tighten voting laws in the aftermath of the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump’s lies about fraud and election rigging.

Full Article: Pennsylvania Republicans’ proposed election overhaul includes stricter voter ID, in-person early-voting

Pennsylvania Republican leaders face pressure to pursue Arizona-style 2020 election ‘audit’ | Andrew Seidman/Philadelphia Inquirer

Republican leaders of the Pennsylvania legislature are coming under growing pressure to conduct a new review of the 2020 election, as former President Donald Trump and his supporters continue to make false claims that the vote was rife with widespread fraud. The push is dividing the party between those who want to put the presidential race behind them five months into the Biden administration, and others eager to curry favor with the GOP’s undisputed leader. The split also illuminates competing visions for how the party can win in next year’s high-stakes elections for governor and U.S. Senate. Lawmakers in Harrisburg spent months holding hearings about Pennsylvania’s election system, with GOP leaders taking pains to emphasize they want to improve state law — not relitigate the presidential race. Republicans’ point person on election legislation in the state House released a report last month outlining potential changes for a systematic overhaul of the election code, and GOP lawmakers expect to introduce a bill this month. But this week, three Republican lawmakers traveled to Phoenix to get a firsthand look at a controversial partisan review of last year’s election in Maricopa County, Ariz., which has been underway for months. The lawmakers — including State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a likely candidate for governor — then called for a similar review in Pennsylvania.

Full Article: Pa. Republican leaders face pressure to pursue Arizona-style 2020 election ‘audit’

Pennsylvania: How the national push by Trump allies to audit 2020 ballots started quietly in Pennsylvania | Rosalind S. Helderman/The Washington Post

Joe Biden’s presidential victory in Pennsylvania had been certified for weeks when officials in some Republican-leaning counties began receiving strange phone calls from GOP state senators in late December. The lawmakers, who had been publicly questioning Biden’s win, had a request: Would the counties agree to a voluntary audit of their ballots? The push to conduct unofficial election audits in multiple counties, described in interviews and emails obtained by The Washington Post, served as a last-ditch effort by allies of former president Donald Trump to undercut Biden’s win after failing in the courts and the state legislature. The previously unreported lobbying foreshadowed a playbook now in use in Arizona and increasingly being sought in other communities across the country as Trump supporters clamor for reviews of the ballots cast last fall, citing false claims that the vote was corrupted by fraud. The former president’s backers argue that any evidence of problems they can uncover will prove the election system is vulnerable — and could have been manipulated to help Biden win. The audits are being pushed by a loose affiliation of GOP lawmakers, lawyers and self-described election experts, backed by private fundraising campaigns whose donors are unknown. In Pennsylvania, the state senators quietly targeted at least three small counties, all of which Trump had won handily. Their proposal was unorthodox: to have a private company scrutinize the county’s ballots, for free — a move outside the official processes used for election challenges. Only one county is known to have agreed to the senators’ request: rural Fulton County, on the Maryland border, where Trump performed better than anywhere else in the state, winning nearly 86 percent of the roughly 8,000 votes cast.

Full Article: How the national push by Trump allies to audit 2020 ballots started quietly in Pennsylvania – The Washington Post

Pennsylvania GOP leader rejects Arizona-style election audit, but others push for it | Marc Levy and Mark Scolforo/Associated Press

A key member of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives is flatly rejecting talk of any sort of audit of the 2020 presidential election, a day after three fellow Republican state lawmakers toured the Arizona Senate GOP’s audit. Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, who chairs the committee that handles election matters, said on Twitter on Thursday that the chamber “will not be authorizing any further audits on any previous election.” Two of those visiting lawmakers, Sens. Cris Dush and Doug Mastriano, say they want something similar carried out in Pennsylvania. They will have trouble getting anything through Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, who dismissed their trip to Arizona as an “effort to discredit the integrity of our elections” and “an insult to our county election workers and to Pennsylvania voters.” “As counties call on the General Assembly to act on election reform, GOP state lawmakers are chasing conspiracy theories across the country,” Wolf said on Twitter. Grove’s Senate counterpart in the Republican-controlled Legislature, Sen. David Argall, R-Schuykill, said in an interview Thursday that legislation or a resolution in the chamber to commission some sort of audit remains a possibility in June.

Full Article: GOP fight over 2020 election audit brews in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers threaten to impeach Philadelphia elections officials over undated mail ballots | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Top Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature threatened Friday to impeach Philadelphia elections officials if they count undated mail ballots from last week’s primary, a major escalation in ongoing legal and political fights over how elections are run. Four of the seven justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in a decision last year that voters must sign and date envelopes when returning mail ballots. Republicans pointed to that case, saying counties must reject the undated ballots. In a letter to city commissioners Lisa Deeley and Omar Sabir, the two Democrats who voted this week to count them, the lawmakers demanded they “immediately rescind your endorsement of this unlawful action.” “So there can be no misunderstanding — failure to promptly conform to Pennsylvania law will leave us no choice but to seek your removal from office using the authority vested to the House of Representatives,” the legislative leaders wrote. It’s extremely rare to impeach elected officials and attempt to remove them from office. Any lawmakers can introduce impeachment resolutions — just this month, three lawmakers tried to launch an impeachment probe of a Schuylkill County commissioner. Such efforts usually go nowhere. Top legislative leaders publicly threatening impeachment is an extraordinary move likely to further inflame partisan conflict and the voting wars that have taken center stage in Harrisburg and elsewhere since the 2020 election and the false claims of widespread fraud that followed it.

Full Article: Pa. Republican lawmakers threaten to impeach Philadelphia elections officials over undated mail ballots

Pennsylvania primary showed that running elections is complicated — and so is changing election law | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Elections are complex. Running them is hard. And Pennsylvania is still building its system. That was clear in last week’s primary, when more than 2.2 million voters participated in the first non-presidential election since the state dramatically expanded mail voting. It was a test of a still-new system, and there were points of clear failure or acute stress — pointing to both new and long-standing challenges. Philadelphia had problems using its ballot extractor machines. Lancaster County’s mail ballots were printed in the wrong order. Luzerne County’s voting machines read “Democratic” at the top of the screen for Republican voters. Delaware and York Counties, among others, ran out of paper ballots in some precincts. Those problems call for narrow, specific solutions, elections officials and voting rights advocates said. But some Republicans in Harrisburg, who made overhauling the state’s election law a top priority following Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, painted the problems as evidence of a need for systemic change. Many local officials said that sweeping focus could leave unaddressed the narrower problems. “We have to be able to walk before we can run,” said Lisa Schaefer, the head of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. “It’s really looking at what we have in front of us and making sure that what we have works well.” Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature are preparing to introduce legislation that could include major election changes. Rep. Seth Grove (R., York), chair of the House State Government Committee, has the support of Republican leaders as he drafts legislation to be introduced in the next few weeks. Republicans hope to have changes in place before next year’s elections, when Pennsylvania will have open races for governor and U.S. Senate.

Full Article: Pennsylvania primary election reveals small problems, and Republican calls for big changes

Pennsylvania: Cause of Luzerne County ballot mislabeling identified | Jennifer Andes/Times Leader

Two reasons were given Monday for Luzerne County Republican ballots mislabeled as Democratic ones on electronic screens at polling places in the May 18 primary. Dominion Voting Systems Inc., which supplied and programs the devices, said “human error” caused the data entry typographical mistake in the heading at the top of the ballot, according to company executive vice president of operations Nicole Nollette. And county Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik acknowledged the county does not test the on-screen ballots after they are approved. The county leaves it up to Dominion to program them into the electronic ballot marking devices with no county examination before the machines are locked up for delivery, he said. The explanation came during a more than two-hour special meeting called by the county’s volunteer citizen Election Board solely to address the ballot mislabeling error. The incorrect ballot heading impacted all Republican ballots countywide. The mistake prompted many Republicans to question the accuracy of the ballot and voting process. Some Democrats also reported they incorrectly received Republican ballots on their screens because that ballot also had a Democratic heading. Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams asked Dominion and the county administration what they will do differently to prevent this from happening again. Nollette said her company will improve its data entry proofing and work with the county. Parsnik said the county will do its own verification check. He already has created a list of everything that must be tested after programming, including the ballot header, and said he will assign an information technology staffer to review and sign off on each item before the machines are sealed. “We will learn from this, and we will move forward,” Parsnik said.

Full Article: Cause of Luzerne County ballot mislabeling identified | Times Leader

Pennsylvania: Wake Technology Services audited a Fulton County election as part of the #StopTheSteal movement | Jeremy Duda/Arizona Mirror

The company that is conducting a hand recount of nearly 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots conducted an election audit in rural Pennsylvania county at the request of a state senator who has been a prominent advocate of the “Stop the Steal” movement that has spread baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump. According to records and news coverage from Fulton County, Penn., state senators Doug Mastriano and Judy Ward asked county officials to allow Wake Technology Services Inc. to conduct an audit of the election. Ward, who represents the rural county in southern central Pennsylvania, told the Arizona Mirror that she passed the request on to county officials at Mastriano’s behalf. Mastriano has been a prominent supporter of the “Stop the Steal” movement and Trump ally. He helped organize a Nov. 25 hearing in Gettysburg where Trump campaign lawyer Rudy Giuiani and others aired baseless conspiracy theories that Trump lost Pennsylvania through “irregularities and fraud.” He said on Wednesday Trump recently urged him to run for governor. Wake TSI, an information technology company that has predominantly worked with clients in the health care sector, is now conducting a hand recount of all ballots cast in Maricopa County during the 2020 presidential election as part of an audit ordered by Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott. The company is part of an audit team led by Cyber Ninjas, a cybersecurity company located in Florida. Fann and Cyber Ninjas cited Wake TSI’s experience in Fulton County as a qualification to participate in the Maricopa County audit.

Full Article: Wake Technology Services audited a Pennsylvania election as part of the #StopTheSteal movement

Pennsylvania: Northumberland County might replace faulty election machines, seek refund | Robert Inglis/The Daily Item

The Northumberland County Commissioners may seek a refund or replacement for the new election machines that have malfunctioned in the past three elections. Commissioner Chairman Sam Schiccatano said on Wednesday that Elections Systems and Software is looking into the latest issues that caused poll workers in 17 of 74 precincts to have difficulty closing down the machines on Tuesday, delaying the full results until Wednesday. The machines also malfunctioned when the paper ballots frequently jammed in the primary and general election in 2020, meaning there has not been an election where the machines have worked correctly. “I don’t know if it’s a refund or an exchange, but we need a remedy,” said Schiccatano. “We can’t have this every time we have an election. I’m on the phone with the state and everyone involved to work this out.” Following a state mandate, Northumberland County purchased 190 voting machines in 2019 from Elections Systems and Software with additional hardware, software and support services for $962,489 before reimbursement. The Wolf administration decertified all voting machines across the state, requiring the purchase of new systems with a verifiable paper trail beginning in 2020. It’s a settlement of a lawsuit brought by Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016, who sought a recount in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Four in five Pennsylvania voters used machines that lack an auditable paper trail, according to The Associated Press.

Full Article: Northumberland County might replace faulty election machines, seek refund | News | dailyitem.com

Pennsylvania: A new wave of election directors step in to fill state’s many vacancies — with little training and varying experience | Marie Albiges/Philadelphia Inquirer

Among the most stressed-out folks in local government this week will be the former manager of the USA Field Hockey team, a congressman’s past chief of staff, and an ex-political science professor. They’ll all be running elections in Pennsylvania for the first time during Tuesday’s primaries — and they will do it under the microscope of a skeptical GOP electorate galvanized by Republicans in the state legislature.After what election directors described as a “nightmare” election in 2020 — in which huge changes to Pennsylvania’s voting process were complicated by the pandemic and partisan misinformation fueled by former President Donald Trump and his allies — at least 25 of their peers left their jobs. Five months later, most of those positions have been filled, but not everyone has the same level of experience as their predecessors. For the newest election directors, their first real test will come Tuesday, when thousands of Pennsylvanians will cast a ballot in the primaries. “The view from the consumer side of the counter, and the view from this side of the counter, is tremendously different,” said Bob Morgan, who started as Luzerne County election director a mere six weeks ago after leaving a job as U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwight’s chief of staff. “It’s a little bit like drinking from the firehose.”

Source: A new wave of election directors step in to fill Pa.’s many vacancies — with little training and varying experience

Pennsylvania: U.S. Supreme Court dismisses the last challenge over 2020 election | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

The U.S. Supreme Court closed the books on Pennsylvania’s 2020 election Monday, rejecting an appeal of a Republican congressional candidate’s unsuccessful challenge of the state’s mail-ballot deadlines. The case was the last of a torrent of litigation challenging the administration of Pennsylvania’s election, which drew intense scrutiny and several appeals to the Supreme Court. But the court repeatedly declined to intervene in the Pennsylvania cases, even as some conservative justices signaled potential interest. On Monday — five months and 16 days after Election Day, and three months into Biden’s presidency — the court vacated the previous judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, returned the case to the circuit court, and instructed it to dismiss the case as moot. No justices were listed as dissenting from the decision. The ruling means the state can count about 10,000 mail ballots that had arrived after Election Day. They were far too few to change President Joe Biden’s 81,000-vote victory in Pennsylvania but those votes hadn’t been included in the state’s certified vote count, leaving thousands of voters technically without a voice in the election. The Pennsylvania Department of State is now “reviewing the options” for those ballots, a spokesperson said Monday. The case resolved Monday, Bognet v. Degraffenreid, was one of several focused on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling that extended mail-ballot deadlines until three days after Election Day. That ruling was meant to address concerns that mail delivery delays would prevent votes from arriving on time.

Full Article: U.S. Supreme Court dismisses the last challenge over Pennsylvania’s 2020 election

Pennsylvania State House committee hears suggestions on improving election laws, but will the Legislature listen? | Julian Routh/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Good government stakeholders and national advocacy groups told lawmakers in Harrisburg on Thursday that incremental changes to the election law can alleviate the burden on stressed-out county workers and make it easier for voters to participate in the process. Their testimony came as the House State Government Committee finished its series of election oversight hearings, intended to give members a firsthand look at what might be needed to tweak the election code in the coming months and years. As Democrats continued to express fears that the Republican-led committee and Legislature will use the hearings to justify a crackdown on voting accessibility and mail-in ballots, a majority of those who testified agreed that changes to the law should be procedural and bipartisan. “As has been noted repeatedly in these hearings, the vast majority of Pennsylvania election law is still from the 1930s,” Committee of Seventy President and CEO David Thornburgh said in written testimony to the committee. “Revamping the entire Election Code may not be possible at this juncture, but the General Assembly has yet another opportunity to substantially modernize Pennsylvania election procedures, maintain election integrity, and improve the customer service experience of eligible voters.” The biggest consensus appeared to be that county election officials need more time to pre-canvass and process the influx of mail-in ballots, something that counties have been calling for since well before last November’s general election.

Full Article: State House committee hears suggestions on improving Pa.’s election laws, but will the Legislature listen? | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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

Pennsylvania: Postal Service finds no evidence of mail ballot fraud in case cited by top Republicans | Jacob Bogage and Shawn Boburg/The Washington Post

U.S. Postal Service investigators found no evidence to support a Pennsylvania postal worker’s claim that his supervisors had tampered with mail-in ballots, according to an inspector general’s report — allegations cited by top Republicans to press baseless claims of fraud in the presidential election. Richard Hopkins, a mail carrier in Erie, alleged in November that he overheard the local postmaster discussing plans to backdate ballots received after the Nov. 3 vote and pass them off to election officials as legitimate. Working with Project Veritas, a nonprofit entity that seeks to expose what it says is bias in the mainstream news media, Hopkins publicly released a sworn affidavit recounting those allegations. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) cited Hopkins’s claim in a letter to the Justice Department in November calling for a federal investigation into election results in Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump by more than 81,000 votes, and Democratic candidates outperformed GOP challengers in votes submitted by mail. Graham and many other congressional Republicans refused to accept the outcome of the election for weeks, even after states audited and certified results. Then-Attorney General William P. Barr subsequently authorized federal prosecutors to open investigations into credible allegations of voting irregularities and fraud before results were certified, a reversal of long-standing Justice Department policy.

Full Article: USPS: ‘No evidence’ in mail ballot fraud case cited by Republicans – The Washington Post

Pennsylvania counties will again be unable to process mail ballots early during primary election | Marie Albiges/Spotlight PA

Local officials in Pennsylvania are facing another election without extra time to process mail ballots, likely leading to delayed results and putting increased pressure on counties reeling from the most expensive contest ever. House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R., Centre) and Rep. Seth Grove (R., York) told the New Castle News last week they likely wouldn’t consider any election-related legislation until after the House State Government Committee completes its 14 election oversight meetings, the last of which is scheduled for May 5, less than two weeks before the May 18 primary. The municipal primary — which includes races for local and appellate court judges, school board members, and township positions — typically has much lower turnout than a presidential race. But election officials said they can’t predict how many voters will take advantage of the state’s no-excuse mail voting law during an off-year election. “It’s just not possible, even with a small election, to get everything counted in one day plus run another election,” said Marybeth Kuznik, Armstrong County’s election director.

Full Article: Counties will again be unable to process mail ballots early during Pa.’s primary election · Spotlight PA

Pennsylvania: U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear mail-ballot deadline case | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it won’t hear several challenges to Pennsylvania’s 2020 election — including two appeals of the state’s mail-ballot deadline extension — denying a Republican attempt to severely limit courts’ ability to oversee how elections are run. The decision not to hear the legal challenges brought by top Republican state lawmakers and the state GOP ends litigation that prevented Pennsylvania from counting 10,000 mail ballots that arrived in the three days after Election Day and had remained in legal limbo. But one final legal challenge to those ballots remains before the high court, and the Pennsylvania Department of State isn’t counting them until that case is resolved. If counted, they would likely extend President Joe Biden’s 80,000-vote victory in the state. The decisions show how the campaign to challenge and undermine the election results by Donald Trump and his allies outlasted even his presidency, and are only now close to coming to an end after meeting near-universal defeat in state and federal courts. The decisions also set back a Republican push to significantly shift the election law landscape by essentially shutting out courts from making changes to election procedures. The U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the power to decide how elections are run, but that has long been understood to mean the normal legislative process, including sign-off from governors and judicial review of the law. The question of court oversight and state legislative power remains unresolved, in what one expert called “a ticking time bomb.” Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented, saying they would have heard the two mail-ballot deadline extension cases. The court also decided not to hear a case brought by the Trump campaign that sought to overturn a number of Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions, and a case brought by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Pa.) and others that challenged the state’s mail voting law itself.

Full Article: U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear Pennsylvania mail-ballot deadline case