Pennsylvania Prepares Arizona-Style Election Audit As Lawmaker Demands Counties Turn Over Voting Equipment; PA Orders Counties Not to Comply With GOP Senator’s Request for 2020 Election Data, and related stories

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Pennsylvania Prepares Arizona-Style Election Audit As Lawmaker Demands Counties Turn Over Voting Equipment:

Key Facts

• Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican who chairs the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, said Wednesday he had sent letters to Philadelphia, York and Tioga counties asking them to turn over election materials by July 31. 
•  The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the materials being requested are “sprawling” and include ballots, voting machines, vote counting equipment, mail-in ballot envelopes and mail-in ballot applications. 
•  If the counties do not provide the materials as Mastriano requested, the lawmaker said on the John Fredericks Show Wednesday he would convene a committee meeting to vote on whether subpoenas can be issued to force the counties to comply, which he believes they would. 
•  Mastriano said the audit would not be a recount but a comprehensive “forensic investigation,” in which ballots will be analyzed to see whether they were filled in by a human, voting machines examined and signatures scrutinized, among other efforts. 
•  The Arizona State Senate similarly launched their controversial election audit by subpoenaing election materials from county officials, which were then turned over to the private companies running the audit. 
•  The audit will not change the election results, but critics warn it could sow distrust in the election result, and Mastriano said Wednesday if “there are magnificent issues that come out of it, it’s going to have to go to a court.” --->READ MORE HERE

AP Photo/Matt Slocum

Pennsylvania orders counties not to comply with GOP senator’s request for 2020 election data:

The administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania has ordered counties not to comply with a Republican state senator’s request for voting data to be used in an audit of the 2020 election.

The Pennsylvania Department of State said in a two-page directive that the request by state Sen. Doug Mastriano of Franklin County, an ally of former President Donald Trump, “jeopardizes the security and integrity” of the counties’ voting systems.

“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,” the department said.

The state said it won’t reimburse counties for new voting machines and other election equipment if they turn over their systems to Mr. Mastriano.

Mr. Wolf vowed to stop Mr. Mastriano‘s effort. --->READ MORE HERE

Follow links below to related stories:

Pennsylvania 'forensic investigation' seeks election materials

Trump ally seeks ‘forensic investigation’ of 2020 election in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Republicans take steps to conducting Arizona-style election audit

Pennsylvania quickly counters election 'forensic' audit with voting machines directive

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