PA Department of State Issues Directive after Forensic Election Audit Opened
The Post & Email 7/11/2021
An announcement on Wednesday of a forensic election audit by Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano was followed by a directive from Commonwealth Department of State Acting Secretary Veronica Degraffenreid to refuse to provide election equipment from “third parties.”
In a press release and video statement, Mastriano, who chairs the state senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, asserted that irregularities occurring in the November 3, 2020 general election and 2021 primaries for municipal elections led him to open the audit with the purpose of restoring Pennsylvanians’ faith in the election process.
“Today, as Chair of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee, I issued letters to several counties requesting information and materials needed to conduct a forensic investigation of the 2020 General Election and the 2021 Primary,” Mastriano wrote in his press release. “We have asked these counties to respond by July 31st with a plan to comply. The counties represent different geographical regions of Pennsylvania and differing political makeups. Some are Republican while others are Democrat, which means that this will be a balanced investigation.”
“The case for a forensic investigation of the 2020 general election is evident to any unbiased observer,” the announcement continued. “This was the first election in Pennsylvania with ‘mass’ mail-in voting. In 2020, there were 2.7 million ballots cast by mail and absentee compared to about 263,000 absentee ballots cast in 2016. Many of these ballots were counted at off-site locations with little outside observation or oversight. Furthermore, mail ballots without signature verification were permitted to be counted across the Commonwealth.”
Pennsylvania’s legislature has a majority of Republicans in both chambers, while its governor, Tom Wolf, is a Democrat. “Governor Wolf and the Secretary of State refused to conduct any type of thorough investigation despite the concerns of millions of our citizens in the aftermath of the election and hundreds of affidavits alleging first-hand fraud, irregularities, and illegal behavior witnessed at polling places,” Mastriano wrote on page 2 of his announcement. “The closest thing to an investigation we got was a small so called ‘risk-limiting’ audit which consisted of a sample of only 45,000 randomly selected ballots from the November Election. Not nearly the type of investigation that was needed to determine any fraud, misconduct, or technical anomalies. This audit was conducted by the Department of State and did not include public input for outside observers.”
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