The Pa. GOP Law Enforcement Explodes 2020 Audit Efforts Pushed by Trump Allies

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The state of Pennsylvania Sen. Dan Laughlin criticized a GOP-led election audit in an op-ed. “Donald Trump lost Pennsylvania because Donald Trump received less,” he wrote. Biden defeated Trump in Pennsylvania by 1%, or about 80,000 votes from a 6.9 million ballot cast. LoadingSomething is loading.

A GOP lawmaker in Pennsylvania has criticized his party’s efforts to push for a “forensic” audit of statewide 2020 election results that saw President Joe Biden defeat former President Donald Trump.

In a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review op-ed run on Thursday, Sen. Dan Laughlin of Erie County opposed an investigation into the election results, emphasizing that such an investigation would be conducted “absent credible evidence of fraud” and “Especially paranoid atmospherics, toxic to both parties.”

“The current attempt to discredit the 2020 election results goes into an unmistakable fact,” Laughlin wrote. “While Donald Trump narrowly lost to Pennsylvania, both ballots ensured Republican control over the state Senate and House, which sent many incumbent Democrats packing, and made it amid recordout turnout and an expanded voting franchise. “

He added: “Donald Trump lost Pennsylvania because Donald Trump received less.”

Laughlin criticized the efforts of the conservative state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who has been the leading force behind a potential Keystone State audit with Trump’s blessing.

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Mastriano met with Trump earlier this summer at the Trump Tower in Manhattan and traveled to Arizona to meet with GOP lawmakers and tour the audit site. The senator requested that the voting equipment be inspected through a “forensic” audit, modeling the investigation after the GOP-led administration in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most popular jurisdiction.

In the op-ed, Laughlin criticized the Arizona audit, saying the process “weakened public trust.”

“An outside vendor with an initial insight was asked to‘ audit ’the ballots and equipment,” he wrote. “The only credible result is a weakened public confidence in democracy and a cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers who must replace voting machines that have been decertified because a third party tinkered with them. ”

Trump, who pushed incorrect election conspiracy theories ahead of the 2020 election, said in June that GOP leaders not lined up behind him would be “stupid, corrupt, or nave” and “would be primaried and many will be defeated. “

Mastriano initiated an investigation last month, requesting access to ballot machines in the provinces of Philadelphia, Tioga, and York. While Philadelphia is one of the most democratic jurisdictions in the entire province, continuing to deliver massive margins for party statewide candidates, Tioga and York are dominated by Republicans.

So far, none of the provinces have complied, despite the threat of a subpoena by Mastriano if officials have not authorized the machines by July 31.

Pennsylvania has already completed a narrow “risk limiting audit” of the 2020 election, with counties auditing a selection of votes; there is no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud that Trump said.

Biden gave Trump in Keystone State a little over 1% of the vote, or about 80,000 votes from a 6.9 million ballot cast.

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