Fogbow

Pennsylvania Senate GOP edges toward Arizona-style election audit
BY REID WILSON - 06/21/21 12:43 PM EDT

A top Pennsylvania Republican says he supports an audit of the state’s presidential election results similar to a review being conducted in Arizona, raising the potential for other states to spend taxpayer money investigating former President Trump’s false claims of improprieties and fraud. Pennsylvania state Sen. David Argall (R), who heads the Senate State Government Committee that has oversight of election administration, told reporters he supports another look at the Pennsylvania results. “It’s a very careful recount, forensic audit, so yeah, I don’t see the danger in it,” Argall said during a forum with reporters from Spotlight PA, a consortium of media companies from across the state. “I just think that it would not be a bad idea at all to proceed with an audit similar to what they’re doing in Arizona.”

Argall, a political scientist who teaches at Penn State Schuylkill, acknowledged two other audits of Pennsylvania’s votes that have already taken place and which confirmed President Biden’s victory in the perennial swing state. But he said he would back yet another count as a way to address the mistrust in election results he hears from constituents in his home district. “I am not hung up on how exactly the audit is completed. I just think that we should complete one,” he said. “I think it needs to be independent. I think there is going to be mistrust if the same people who conducted the election conduct the audit.”

Biden carried Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes by a margin of more than 80,000 votes, or more than 1 percentage point, a wider margin than Trump’s victory there in 2016. Biden won 3.45 million votes in Pennsylvania, more than any presidential contender in the commonwealth’s history. Trump has repeatedly pushed Republicans to conduct audits of election results in states he lost. In a statement last week, Trump criticized both Argall and state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R) for their inaction. “Why is State Senator Jake Corman of Pennsylvania fighting so hard that there not be a Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam? Corman is fighting as though he were a Radical Left Democrat, saying that a Forensic Audit of Pennsylvania not take place,” Trump said in the statement. “Why is Senator David Argall playing the same game? Are they stupid, corrupt, or naive?” A spokesman for Corman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday morning.

The Republican-controlled state House in Pennsylvania has rejected any potential audit, and Corman has been coy about the prospects of the state Senate funding its own count. Argall’s committee has subpoena power, but funding an audit would likely require the legislature to approve an appropriation. Republican legislators from at least 10 states have visited Arizona to observe the state Senate-ordered audit of votes cast in Maricopa County. That audit has been riddled with allegations of security lapses and wild conspiracy theories, and auditors have not claimed to have found any wrongdoing. Some of those legislators have returned home to states like Georgia, Utah and Michigan demanding their own audits. At least one Pennsylvania legislator, state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), who also participated in the Jan. 6 rally that led to the Capitol insurrection in Washington, was among the political tourists observing the count.

“I am not hung up on how exactly the audit is completed. I just think that we should complete one,” he said. “I think it needs to be independent. I think there is going to be mistrust if the same people who conducted the election conduct the audit.”

tek wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 5:30 pm That's gibberish.. if you don't care about "how exactly the audit is completed" then you don't know what you are trying to prove, and you won't know when you've proven or refuted it..

neeneko wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 5:42 pm

tek wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 5:30 pm That's gibberish.. if you don't care about "how exactly the audit is completed" then you don't know what you are trying to prove, and you won't know when you've proven or refuted it..

Also, if one did not care how the audit was completed, one would simply accept the results of the one that already happened.

jemcanada2 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:47 pm But…but…but how do you audit the ballots that were changed from Italy and the chickens that ate them?

Or something derpy.

neeneko wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 5:42 pm

tek wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 5:30 pm That's gibberish.. if you don't care about "how exactly the audit is completed" then you don't know what you are trying to prove, and you won't know when you've proven or refuted it..

Also, if one did not care how the audit was completed, one would simply accept the results of the one that already happened.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:43 pm They don't want an audit. They want (in)validation. And they don't care how they get it.

p0rtia wrote: ↑Tue Jun 22, 2021 11:42 am There will be no end to the fraudit(s). Our new norm. Add it to gun violence, COVID, and poverty.

northland10 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 22, 2021 2:30 pm

p0rtia wrote: ↑Tue Jun 22, 2021 11:42 am There will be no end to the fraudit(s). Our new norm. Add it to gun violence, COVID, and poverty.

Poverty is a new norm?

Gregg wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 5:19 am And I will live to piss on Mitch McConnel's grave. He, even more than Trump, is to blame for most of what's been wrong for 30 years.

Frater I*I wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 4:56 pm

Gregg wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 5:19 am And I will live to piss on Mitch McConnel's grave. He, even more than Trump, is to blame for most of what's been wrong for 30 years.

That's the reason I call him Dark Lord of the Mitch. While Dems have been playing political tidily winks, he's been brainwashing his people that the Dem are the enemies of America.

p0rtia wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 7:26 am