(Headline USA) A Pennsylvania courtroom became the latest battleground over claims the 2020 presidential election was rigged, as Republicans around the country pressed ahead with efforts to investigate the voting despite what some contend is a lack of evidence of widespread fraud.
A five-judge panel in Harrisburg heard Democrats’ arguments to block a subpoena sought by Senate Republicans, seeking information on voters and election systems. Democrats argue the subpoena is an abuse of power and serves no legitimate legislative purpose. What purpose could be served, after all, by searching for voter fraud.
A lawyer for Senate Republicans insisted lawmakers have a legitimate interest in getting the information to improve election law, regardless of the backdrop of former President Donald Trump trying to get allies in battleground states to hold elections boards and officials accountable.
“The fact that there’s noise floating around out there shouldn’t concern the court,” lawyer Matt Haverstick said.
The election review in Pennsylvania and another in Wisconsin are part of the larger story, as GOP lawmakers elsewhere make their case for similar efforts in their states.
Among the claims is that widespread voter fraud occurred, but an Associated Press review found fewer than 475 instances of potential voter fraud in the six states disputed by Trump — a number that would have made no difference in the election.
Limited instances of individual voter fraud, however, make it difficult to swing any election, even ones as close as several contested states in 2020, as the compilers of the AP report almost certainly know. The election was marred wholesale by Democrats changing rules and regulations on the fly to met their needs, oftentimes using the COVID pandemic as cover justification, and being provided positive coverage by compliant, leftist media outfits.
Democrats and their allies in the media don’t need individual voter fraud to win elections; not when they can abuse a flawed legal system and partisan legislative bodies to legitimize bogus voting practices that work to their advantage and gain, such as widespread mail-in and absentee voting, same-day registration without adequate identity verification, and no-check signatures, as just a few examples.
Republican leaders argue their probes are needed to restore public confidence in elections, but experts say it’s the reviews themselves that are undermining faith in U.S. elections.
In Pennsylvania, Republicans led by Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman insist the undertaking has nothing to do with Trump or trying to overturn last year’s election. Rather, they say the point is to fix problems with the state’s elections.
However, the 2020 election has been the focus of Republican-controlled committees in the Senate and House. There have been numerous hearings, hours of testimony, and proposed legislation.
In an interview Tuesday, Trump praised the work of Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and argued that many of the problems that arose in the election were due to pandemic-related changes made outside of the legislative process.
“They used COVID in order to cheat, as a way of cheating,” Trump said. “In Pennsylvania, Sen. Corman and a whole group of people are totally engaged because they’ve now found that things were much different than they were told.”
To conduct their review, Pennsylvania Republicans have hired a small firm with little track record and no experience in elections. There was no bidding for the contract, and no public request for proposals. A similar situation unfolded in Arizona, where Senate Republicans seeking a review of the 2020 election hired an outside firm that was criticized for its lack of knowledge of election systems and processes.
The Arizona review ended in September without offering proof to support Trump’s claims of a stolen election.
In Wisconsin this week, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said the investigation he ordered into the 2020 presidential election will spill into next year and cost more money. So far, the effort has cost taxpayers nearly $680,000.
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman was tapped to lead the investigation and has sought subpoenas of the mayors of the state’s five largest cities and the state’s top elections official.
Wisconsin election officials have so far identified 31 potential cases of voter fraud. In 26 of those cases, prosecutors declined to bring charges after conducting a review, according to the AP’s findings.
The demands for reviews of the election also includes reliably Republican states that Trump won in 2020. Last week, a panel of majority-GOP lawmakers in Utah approved an audit of the state’s election system. Unlike Arizona, the Utah effort will be conducted by nonpartisan legislative auditors and is not focused solely on 2020.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
