Pennsylvania Republicans on Wednesday voted to subpoena voter records and other documents as part of an investigation into President Joe Biden’s election victory 10 months earlier, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
The state Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee last month launched a “full forensic investigation” of the election despite no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities that could have affected the election result. The probe comes after former President Donald Trump demanded a probe similar to the dubious so-called “audit” in Arizona sparked by his false claims about his loss.
“I’m not looking to Arizona. If we learn some things after they’re completed, that might be helpful, we’ll certainly find out,” Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman told the Inquirer. “This is Pennsylvania-specific. And whether what we’re doing actually meets the legal term of ‘forensic’ or not, I’m not sure. But what we’re gonna do is do a thorough investigation, and go with credibility, so that people can have [faith] in the results.”
GOP targets voter info:
Republicans plan to obtain voting machines and ballots but have already issued subpoenas for lists of all registered voters in the state and nonpublic personal identification information including the last four digits of Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
It also seeks information on how each voter cast a ballot in the election.
“That’s where you get to the bottom of whether there was any fraud: Who showed up to vote, and were they properly registered to vote?” Corman said. “You get a lot of allegations, and the only way you sort of find that out is if you actually look at it. The governor made us spend tens of millions if not hundreds of millions on these new voting machines. They all have a paper trail. Well, what’s that paper trail for other than to review the last election, or the election process?”
Democrats vow to fight:
Democrats have vowed to fight the subpoenas and it’s unclear if Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration can be forced to produce the information requested by the lawmakers.
“Let’s be very clear, this information request is merely another step to undermine democracy, confidence in our elections and to capitulate to Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. It is a direct continuation of the same lies that resulted in the attack on the Capitol, and that have done so much to destabilize our political institutions over the ten months since last year’s election,” Wolf said. “We badly need Republicans to take election security seriously and stop playing games for political gain.”
