Republican politicians keep on dancing down the yellow brick road with the lion and the scarecrow right at their sides. Oh sure, these two Wizard of Oz characters are lacking a brain and courage, but that should make these legislators and governors feel right at home. They think that this is but a party of one, Donald Trump. Voters be damned. This time, the GOP intends to really steal the election for their leader, or will they hit a giant orange brick roadblock big time?
Pennsylvania Republicans apparently did not consider that should the 2020 election have had fraudulence written all over it, their own down-ballot elections might well invalidate themselves right out of a job. They just drop-kicked their own “audit” into existence ever mindful of the lizard-like guy behind the curtain. Unfortunately for them, the state has already begun holding hearings about whether there was ever any election fraud at all.
The head Democrat on the investigative Pennsylvania Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee Chair has been Senator Cris Dush (R). Senator Anthony Williams (D) demanded the member of the Republican gang needed to do what was right. He gave the audit its orders, calling it “a sham,” according to WFMZ:
‘[It is] a travesty, plain and simple. one part of the ongoing nationally orchestrated attack on our electoral system. [The audit’s goal is] simply to stoke distrust and division.’
Williams continued addressing both parties at the committee table:
‘And the most exasperating part of it all is that everyone on this panel knows that. We know this and you know this. And yet here we sit, witnessing the exploitation of the people out there who honestly believe that the lies that they’ve been told about so-called irregularities and rigging, the basis of which is not founded in fact, because they trust what they are told and by whom they are told. This is sad and it’s wrong.’
‘It is disgraceful that Senate Republicans have chosen to waste our time calling into question the legitimacy of an election that four of their members on the Intergovernmental Operations committee were elected in, and that have been certified and held up in numerous courts of law.’
Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa (D) added this onto the Pennsylvania Senate Operations Committee website:
‘The Intergovernmental Operations Committee should not be examining elections because their committee simply does not have the authority to do so.’
‘Despite this fact, we heard in sworn testimony today that the Department of State did their due diligence in effectively communicating with counties about new voting procedures as a result of Act 77 of 2019 and the further implications of an unprecedented global pandemic.’
At this point, Dush said the committee would hold additional hearings. They even have a website that read:
‘[Pennsylvanians] share any potential violations of election law or voting irregularities they have witnessed personally.’
The only witness before the committee was the Chair of Fulton County Election Board in Pennsylvania Stewart Ulsh. He authorized a third party to perform an audit. This was only after a pro-Trump senator introduced it in December. Ulsh said:
‘Nothing was found.’
In June, The Washington Post covered the formal audit:
‘[The election was] well run, conducted in a diligent and effective manner. This does not indicate that there were no issues with the election, just that they were not the fault of the County Election Commission or County Election Director.’
Asked about the edited report on Thursday, Ulsh said,
‘I didn’t write the report, didn’t tell them what to put in it.’
Dush, who chairs the Intergovernmental Operations Committee, opened the hearing with a line that audit leaders in Arizona and Wisconsin have used as well:
‘This isn’t about overturning the election — something they have no power to do. That horse is out of the barn.’
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