A Pennsylvania Republican lawmaker and a gubernatorial candidate are backing an audit of the 2020 election in the state with former President Donald Trump in mind.
State Rep. Doug Mastriano requested “information and materials” from three counties for a “forensic investigation.” He said if fraud is uncovered, he’ll open it up to more counties within the commonwealth.
He sent the letters in his capacity as the chairman of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee to Philadelphia County, York County, and Tiago County. He set a deadline of July 31, threatening to pursue subpoenas if they don’t comply.
The plans for an election investigation, which will also look at the 2021 primary, is reminiscent of the forensic audit wrapping up in Maricopa County, Arizona, despite complaints from local and state officials and the Justice Department, which is poised to crack down on it before auditors release their findings later this summer.
Trump, people in his orbit, and his acolytes have hailed the efforts of Arizona’s GOP-controlled Senate that successfully used subpoenas to obtain ballots and other election materials for the audit after a favorable ruling from a judge.
Beyond that, Trump and his allies have pushed for copycat audits, including in Pennsylvania, where President Joe Biden won by more than 80,000 votes. Post-election audits by election officials showed no widespread fraud.
The 45th president even praised Mastriano and other Republican lawmakers from the Keystone State by name after they toured the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, the location of the GOP-led Arizona Senate’s audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election.
He also suggested other top legislators would run into problems getting reelected if they didn’t support an audit of their own.
“Great patriots led by State Senator Doug Mastriano, Senator Cris Dush, and State Representative Rob Kauffman went to Maricopa County, Arizona, to learn the best practices for conducting a full Forensic Audit of the 2020 General Election. Now the Pennsylvania Senate needs to act. Senate President Jake Corman needs to fulfill his promise to his constituents to conduct a full Forensic Audit,” Trump said in a tweemail. “Senator Dave Argall, Chairman of the State Government Committee, has to authorize the subpoenas, if necessary. The people of Pennsylvania and America deserve to know the truth. If the Pennsylvania Senate leadership doesn’t act, there is no way they will ever get re-elected!”
PENNSYLVANIA ‘FORENSIC INVESTIGATION’ SEEKS ELECTION MATERIALS
Mastriano, who said Trump encouraged him to run for governor in 2022, is pursuing an audit because he wants an actual endorsement from the former president, according to veteran Pennsylvania GOP consultant Christopher Nicholas.
“It’s clear that he’s playing to one person,” Nicholas told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview.
“So, I think it’s just the cynical ploy by Mastriano to curry favor with President Trump to either get the endorsement next year for governor or perhaps muddy up the water so former President Trump does not endorse anybody” in the race, Nicholas added, referencing former Rep. Lou Barletta, who already declared himself a Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate.
Barletta, endorsed by Trump during his failed 2018 Senate campaign, also declared his support for a forensic investigation of the 2020 election in a phone interview with the Washington Examiner. However, he disagreed with Mastriano’s decision to request information from only three of the state’s 67 counties.
“How do you pick which county and leave out others who may have felt something went wrong?” Barletta asked.
Both Mastriano, in a Wednesday interview on One America News Network, and Barletta, in a conversation with the Washington Examiner, rhetorically asked critics who are against additional audits, “What do you have to hide?”
Barletta did so in response to a question about the 80,000-vote gap between Trump and Biden, and he proceeded to allege dead people voted and “alien ballots” were counted.
Barletta previously said he would “love [Trump’s] endorsement.”
Mastriano will face Democratic resistance in his quest for a forensic investigation.
Elizabeth Rementer, a spokeswoman for Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, told the Washington Examiner in a statement the administration “will stand up to any attempt to disrupt our electoral process and undermine our elections.”
“This latest attempt echoes efforts in Arizona and Fulton County that compromised election machinery and provided access to third-party individuals without the proper qualifications or security measures,” she added. “This illogical, partisan effort to overturn the 2020 election will only lead to the decertification of voting machines that are compromised, additional expense for counties, and more partisanship that only seeks to undermine Pennsylvania’s elections.”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, accused Mastriano of “pay[ing] homage to former President Trump and further spread misinformation about our elections.”
The state’s auditor general’s office, with elected head Republican Timothy DeFoor, said it would follow any court ruling to determine its participation in an audit.
“The 2020 Presidential election has been litigated extensively in Pennsylvania and this office will continue to abide by the state court’s rulings,” the office said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Our approach has not wavered and we will, first and foremost, continue to focus on the audits we are statutorily obligated to perform.”
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David Dix, a Pennsylvania-based political analyst who has worked with candidates and elected officials from both parties, told the Washington Examiner backing the audit will help Republican candidates in various primaries but will not be good for their chances in a general election.
“I think it does kind of curtail a Republican candidate coming out of a primary election, going into a general election if this has been the narrative and one of their almost exclusive talking points,” he said, adding that candidates have “to add to the future of the Republican Party, rather than continually looking backwards and trying to kind of curtail it.”
Mastriano did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
