A Pennsylvania judge has allowed the state Senate’s inspection of Dominion voting machines used by Fulton County in the 2020 presidential election to proceed, according to a report in the Associated Press.
Court issues stunning decision.https://t.co/7A1ScBSBXb
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) December 27, 2021
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf‘s administration had sought to prevent the inspection from taking place, asking the court on Dec. 18 “to stop a digital exchange scheduled for [Dec. 22nd].”
In response, Commonwealth Court Judge Mary Jannah delayed the inspection until Jan. 10 in order to give state and county officials time “to work out an agreed-upon set of rules for an inspection,” the AP reported.
“Executive branch officials were trying to stop the inspection altogether, but the judge did not grant their emergency motion to stop the inspection,” said attorney Tom King of The Amistad Project, who represents Fulton County, in a press release. “They did not go to court seeking a delay; they sought to stop it, and they lost.”
“The court recognized that it was improper to demand that the county – which owns the machines, and has the responsibility of running the election along with the legislature – can’t determine whether the machines worked properly,” added Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project.
“There’s no justification for preventing the county from looking at their own machines.”
The Penn. Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, which has been charged with the investigation, has hired Envoy Sage to conduct the investigation.
Wolf’s administration decertified the county’s voting system for future elections in July “because it was subjected to a post-election review by a third party [software company Wake TSI] in violation of Pennsylvania’s Election Code.”
“As a result of the access granted to Wake TSI,” Secretary of State Veronica W. Degraffenreid wrote in a press release, “Fulton County’s certified system has been compromised and neither Fulton County, the vendor, Dominion Voting Systems, nor the Department of State can verify that the impacted components of Fulton County’s leased voting system are safe to use in future elections.”
