PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania Senate Democrats are blasting a Republican attempt to mount a partisan, Arizona-style “audit” of the 2020 election, even as the state's election results were already audited — twice in most counties — with no evidence of significant fraud.
Philadelphia has one of three election boards that have been targeted.
State Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Adams, Cumberland, Franklin and York Counties), who attended the January 6 Trump rally in Washington that launched the insurrection, sent a five-page letter to Philadelphia, York and Tioga counties.
Mastriano, who is considering running for governor, asked those counties to hand over ballots, log books, computers, servers and other equipment from the November election.
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City commission spokesman Nick Custodio declined to comment on the request, but objected to the letter’s false claims about how the election was conducted.
"We do want to be clear," he said, "that Senator Mastriano’s letter reiterates claims about the November 2020 election that have been resoundingly rejected by courts. The repetition of baseless claims by elected officials poses a real challenge to our democratic processes. We are committed to continuing the hard work of ensuring that Philadelphians are able to exercise their right to vote."
Republican Commissioner Al Schmidt noted that, not only has every county audited its results, most including Philadelphia have done a second level review.
"If those audits indicated any discrepancy or concern, we obviously would have escalated beyond that," Schmidt said.
Mastriano went to Arizona last month to learn more about the partisan election review being conducted there by a contractor with no previous experience, on which Mastriano appears to be basing his request. Schmidt, a former federal auditor, objects to the term “audit” for that effort.
"That is a partisan fishing expedition being conducted by people who have no experience with elections and no experience with auditing," Schmidt added.
State Senator Anthony Williams (D-Delaware County and Philadelphia) and Minority Leader Jay Acosta (D-Allegheny County) immediately struck back.
They urged the Republican leadership to, in their words, “end this misguided political farce,” requested the issuing of a cease and desist order to him, and accused Mastriano of “corrupting and politicizing” the Senate committee process.
"We have grave concerns about the authority and legality of such an audit, let alone the ability of Senator Mastriano to lead it, or frankly to continue his role as a committee chair or even member of the Pennsylvania Senate," they said in a letter to.
"He coordinated and provided transportation for participants to the January 6th attempted interference with the counting and certification of the Electoral College vote – that vote being required by the United States Constitution and federal law. His further participation in the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 have never been investigated. He instigated an election audit in Fulton County by a company that prior to that had no experience in election audits. That audit was cited as support for the audit of election results in Maricopa County, Arizona which Senator Mastriano toured. This does not appear to be a coincidence."
Attorney General Josh Shapiro urged the three counties to refuse the request, and promised to fight if Mastriano tries to subpoena the material.
The Pennsylvania Department of State shared this statement after publication of this story. We share it in full below:
“The Department of State encourages counties to refuse to participate in any sham review of past elections that would require counties to violate the trust of their voters and ignore their statutory duty to protect the chain of custody of their ballots and voting equipment. The Department stands ready to assist counties in upholding their statutory duty to protect the security and integrity of their election machines and systems. Further, we will direct the counties that, if they turn over voting machines or scanners, they should be prepared to replace that brand-new, expensive equipment before any future elections. When the Secretary certifies voting systems, she certifies that they can be secured from outside intrusion. Such a ‘forensic’ exercise as that described by the senator would nullify that assurance.
“Additionally, the federal government has designated voting equipment as protected infrastructure and, as such, there should be no expectation that anyone without the necessary security clearance would be afforded the kind of access requested here.
“We already have seen systems compromised in Fulton County and in the state of Arizona. In both cases, the politically motivated reviews turned up absolutely no evidence of any fraud or discrepancies. Those partisan exercises did, however, prove to be very costly for local officials and taxpayers when election administrators were forced to lease or purchase replacement equipment.
“Pennsylvania counties, despite a convergence of difficult circumstances, ran a free, fair and accurate election in 2020. The majority of Pennsylvanians – and Americans – are satisfied with that truth.
“And yet there continue to be similar moves to conduct reviews in other states, led by a very small group of bad actors, who are not trying to allay election mistrust. They are feeding it for their own purposes, and in the process impugning the integrity of the county and local election officials we rely on to conduct elections, and leaving them to find millions to pay for the new equipment which would be needed if they comply.
“We will oppose any attempt to disrupt our electoral process and undermine our elections at every step and with every legal avenue available.”
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