Pennsylvania Decertifies County Voting Machines After Partisan Election Audit ‘Compromises’ Them
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Top line
The Pennsylvania State Department decertified the Fulton County voting machines after they were inspected by a private computer company behind Arizona’s partisan election audit, as other counties in Pennsylvania are now facing similar demands for their voting equipment from a GOP state senator launching a new election inquiry.
A worker walks past a Dominion ballot scanner in Gwinnett County, Ga., Jan. 4.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Highlights
Fulton County, which former President Donald Trump won in November with 85.6% of the vote, authorized Wake County TSI will inspect its voting machines in December at the request of Republican Senator from the State of Pennsylvania Doug Mastriano.
According to Arizona mirror, Wake TSI was hired to do so by Defending the Republic, a nonprofit founded by far-right lawyer Sidney Powell, which has spread baseless conspiracy theories alleging electoral fraud involving the Dominion voting machines. Voting Systems in use in Fulton County and across the country.
the Washington post reports a number of Republican-leaning counties were contacted following the election to voluntarily hand over their electoral equipment for an audit, but Fulton County appears to be the only one to have accepted the request.
Veronica Degraffenreid, Acting Secretary of State for Pennsylvania informed County Tuesday that because Fulton County granted Wake TSI access to their machines, the Pennsylvania government and the Dominion cannot “verify that the affected components of the Fulton County leased voting system can be used. safe in future elections “.
Fulton County let Wake TSI – a company that has “no knowledge or expertise in electoral technology” – access its voting materials “in a manner that was not transparent or bipartisan” and the “certified system county was compromised “as a result, Degraffenreid wrote in a letter to Fulton County officials.
Fulton County has yet to respond to a request for comment.
Large number
$ 25,000. This is how much Fulton County has already paid to rent new voting machines for the county’s municipal election in May, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported, after Dominion refused to let the county use the voting machines Wake TSI had inspected. The county will likely now have to spend significantly more to fully replace the voting machines. York County, Pa. Estimated it would cost at least $ 2.7 million to replace its equipment, for example, and Tioga County in the state is estimated at Reuters it would cost “hundreds of thousands of dollars”.
What to watch out for
Mastriano has sent demands to York, Tioga and Philadelphia counties asking them to voluntarily hand over their voting machines and election materials – and other counties could follow – by July 31, so that a third-party company can examine them in a so-called “forensic investigation”. York and Tioga counties have previously said they do not want to cooperate with Mastriano’s request as it could result in their decertification. The Republican lawmaker has said he intends to subpoena counties if they do not voluntarily provide the documents, likely setting up a legal showdown as Democratic State Attorney General Josh Shapiro has turned committed to fighting any potential subpoena.
Key context
The Fulton County Election Audit predates the ongoing partisan audit in Maricopa County, Ariz., In which Wake TSI also participated until pulling from the recount in May to the expiration of their contract. Arizona’s audit has been the subject of much criticism and is currently under investigation by the House Oversight Committee, but has nonetheless spurred a new national effort by Republican state lawmakers to launch their own election inquiries. . In addition to Pennsylvania, efforts are also underway in states like Wisconsin and Georgia, and Texas House lawmakers. introduced legislation Tuesday that would launch an audit of their results. While partisan audits won’t change election results, critics have warned they could sow more mistrust in the vote count, as happened in Fulton County, where Wake TSI concluded report that although the county election was “well organized” there were several “issues to note”. “While it may seem minor, the impact on an election can be huge,” Wake TSI said in the report, which the To post notes was entered by numbers on the right as evidence of potential fraud. There is no credible evidence of widespread electoral fraud in Pennsylvania or elsewhere, including involving Dominion voting machines.
Further reading
How pressure from Trump allies to undermine 2020 results through ballot reviews quietly started in Pennsylvania (Washington Post)
Group led by ‘kraken’ attorney Sidney Powell hired AZ election firm to investigate PA election (Arizona mirror)
Pennsylvania audit intensifies as GOP county refuses to hand over election materials (Forbes)
Counties and states Trump won reject calls to launch their own Arizona-style election audits (Forbes)
Pennsylvania prepares Arizona-style election audit as lawmaker demands counties turn in voting materials (Forbes)
