Virginia gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin is chiming in with other prominent Republican-backed calls to execute election-related audits, tying his background in business to justify pursuing an examination of the commonwealth’s voting machines.
“I think we need to make sure that people trust these voting machines,” Youngkin said at a Monday event hosted by a Richmond civics group. “I grew up in a world where you have an audit every year — in businesses, you have an audit. So let’s just audit the voting machines, publish it so everybody can see it.”
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But the Virginia elections department already conducted a post-election “risk-limiting audit,” for the first time, following the 2020 general election. The process tested the accuracy of voting machines and confirmed President Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Youngkin also boasted about his belief in post-election audits back in February, according to spokesman Matt Wolking, who said, “[Youngkin] will ensure Virginia continues to conduct audits going forward and that they are thorough, efficient, and accurate.”
Youngkin’s Democratic challenger, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, has sought to tie his opponent’s stance on voting to former President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. However, Youngkin recently said he would have certified the commonwealth’s electoral votes for Biden even though he supported the former president.
Despite McAuliffe touting Trump’s “Big Lie” regarding the results of the 2020 election as leverage to downplay Youngkin’s legitimacy, the Virginia Democrat once alleged that the Supreme Court was responsible for blocking Al Gore from winning the 2000 election against George W. Bush.
“At the end of the day, if all the votes were counted in Florida, that Al Gore would be president today,” McAuliffe said in a Feb. 4, 2001 interview on Meet the Press. “The Supreme Court stopped the counting of the votes, and if they’d let the count go on, Al Gore would have got the necessary votes.”
A recent poll from Emerson College and Nexstar Media Group suggest the Nov. 2 Virginia gubernatorial election will be a much narrower race compared to the same poll one month before. McAuliffe leads with 49% of likely commonwealth voters, and Youngkin is behind at just 48%. The poll was conducted Oct. 1-3 among 620 likely Virginia voters.
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Since the aftermath of the 2020 election, Trump has been emphatic in challenging the results.
Pressure from the Trump camp has been so strong that officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and others have started investigations, despite the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr finding no evidence to back the possibility of election fraud.
