2020 Audit Has Democrats at DEFCON-1
Pennsylvania Democrats from Governor Tom Wolf on down are at DEFCON1 panic mode over the prospect of a 2020 election audit announced on July 7 by State Senator Doug Mastriano, Chairman of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee.
Panic prompted an “emergency” July 13 visit to Philadelphia, an epicenter of alleged election irregularities, by President(ish) Joe Biden “to deliver remarks on actions to protect the sacred constitutional right to vote.”
Mr. Biden, citizens’ constitutional right to vote is not at issue anywhere. Cheating is.
The senescent, animatronic, non-presidential mediocrity shamelessly labeled even measures to return to pre-pandemic normality “election subversion,” “voter suppression,” and “21st Century Jim Crow.” Devoid of specifics, his “speech” was embarrassing, hysterical, hyperbolic rubbish, Biden’s specialty.
Before that, on July 8, an unelected Pennsylvania bureaucrat wasted no time in announcing her party’s obstruction strategy: “[T]he Acting Secretary of State, Veronica W. Degraffenreid has issued a state-wide directive seeking to block any Pennsylvania legislative attempt to audit the 2020 election results.”
Degraffenreid wants to derail the audit by ordering county officials/boards of elections’ not to release evidence, including electronic voting systems, tabulators and ballot printers.
Her order is illegal, because the state legislature has an absolute legal right to the data.
Mastriano: “As set forth in Pennsylvania Senate Rule 14 (d), each standing committee is empowered with the authority to inspect and investigate the books, records, papers, documents, data, operation, and physical plant of any public agency in this Commonwealth, including county boards of elections.”
In fact, the U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 4 invests the power over federal elections exclusively in state legislatures.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman called Degraffenreid’s directive “an attack on the General Assembly’s power to review, investigate, and legislate in matters within its legislative authority, which includes Pennsylvania’s election system.”
Democrats may not be, but, clearly, the law is on the legislature’s side.
Governor Wolf, whose administration’s pre-election extra-constitutional voting rule modifications maximized opportunities for cheating, grumbled, “[O]ne of our lawmakers is attempting to launch a sham election audit in PA. This is a disgrace to democracy – not to mention a profound waste of time and taxpayer money.”
Few believe that, after indiscriminately blowing billions of taxpayer dollars on Democrat constituencies and special interests, an elected Democrat is genuinely concerned about the cost of a limited election audit sampling both Republican- and Democrat-run jurisdictions.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat with gubernatorial aspirations, said he’ll go to court to block voting equipment audits, saying, “Attacks on our elections are attacks on our democracy.”
Mr. Shapiro ignores that “attacks on our elections” by either side constitute “attacks on our democracy.”
Because Democrats don’t win every elected office everywhere, sorting it out would benefit both parties. But, because they are stubbornly obstructing an audit, Democrats are only raising suspicions they had to cheat to win.
Frankly, the governor’s faux outrage is a tell. Wolf must know something smells, otherwise he’d welcome an audit.
After all, if the election was fairly decided, an audit will prove skeptics wrong, public doubts about future election integrity will be put to rest, and our democracy will be strengthened.
And, if an audit shows errors and/or fraud to have influenced or decided Pennsylvania’s results, then perpetrators will be charged, election integrity bolstered, public confidence restored, and our democracy strengthened.
Ironically, only eight or so months after assuring everyone that tampering with voting machines was impossible, Pennsylvania’s State Department wants to have it both ways by issuing a statement that an audit “jeopardizes the security and integrity” of the counties’ voting systems. If the counties allow access, the voting equipment examined “will be considered no longer secure or reliable to use in subsequent elections,” and the department will withdraw its equipment certification.
“Such access by third parties undermines chain of custody requirements and strict access limitations necessary to prevent both intentional and inadvertent tampering with electronic voting systems.”
Apparently, Pennsylvania’s voting systems were inviolable only before the department certified an unaudited election.
So, what’s changed? More importantly, what might change if Pennsylvania conducts a true audit?
One suspects that Democrats’ knowledge of or, perhaps, their collusion in decisive election illegalities is what raised their panic level to DEFCON1.
Only a thorough forensic audit can reveal the facts and restore public trust.
