An Answer to Pennsylvania Voter Fraud Allegations
Making sense of the first week of 2021
First topic: Voter Fraud Allegations, Pennsylvania
The Crux of the Argument – There are some who believe
Pennsylvania’s elections to have been conducted improperly, not in accordance
with law and/or with the assistance if a
Mail in Voting Zooming Out – The first thing
that needs to be established is there is no specific U.S. federal law that
mandates or sets an exact standard throughout the 50 states and territories.
The Constitution even says as much. Article 1, Section 4 says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” In short, each state can make the decisions for themselves about how they want to approach mail-in voting or absentee ballots. It is permissible under the Constitution.
For instance, Colorado has absentee ballots that are automatically sent to all
registered voters. In Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Montana any registered
voter may apply for an absentee ballot and vote by mail. In Texas, you may only
vote by absentee ballot if you are 65 or older, disabled, out of the country on
election day, or are confined to jail but still eligible to vote. You can look
at all of the specific requirements here from state to state here but this
website has a good general breakdown (1).
But, mail in voting was made more available in states this year due to the
Covid-19 pandemic. By my count at least 40 states (Red and Blue) have the
simple provision that, “Any registered (INSERT STATE HERE) voter may apply for
an absentee ballot and vote by mail.” It was a pretty even split too, with 20
states that went Red and 20 states that went blue. There is an even more
thorough breakdown with additional cited links at (2). They clearly source the
changes to the specific state government websites about changes that were made
due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mail in Voting Zooming In – But, lets specifically look at the
big 5 states that were contended in the 2020 election: Arizona, Georgia,
Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, to see if mail in voting changed
substantially from 2018 to 2020. Did Covid have a substantial impact on what
their laws were previously and where they are now?
Arizona – The previous law in Arizona, before Covid-19 was that any
registered Arizona voter may apply for a ballot. Truth is that since 1991, any
Arizonian could request a ballot by mail.
Georgia – The previous law in Georgia, before Covid-19 was that any
registered Georgian voter may apply for a ballot. As far as I was able to find
out, this has been the law since 2006 (3).
Michigan – In 2018, Michigan passed a law that
allowed for automatic and election day voter registration and no reason
absentee voting. This state had a majority GOP legislature at the time (4).
Nevada – Nevada is the first state on the list to
sign in a law this year to expand mail in voting (5).
While Covid may have pushed Nevada to be the final straw to break the camels
back, so to speak, their process was entirely legal and within the law.
Wisconsin – Wisconsin has had no excuse mail in
voting since 2001.
Timeline of Voting By Mail in All States - You can
see a more detailed list, of what states have allowed no excuse mail in voting
here (6).
At the very least, I hope that the facts presented show that
mail in voting has been around for longer then we think. That many states have
adopted mail in voting prior to 2020. Red and Blue states use it. To disqualify
all mail in voting would essentially call into question the fairly regular
history of voting Republican or Democrat. It’s a tool that even historically
red states like Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, Florida, North Carolina,
Wyoming, South Dakota, and Iowa have used for a while.
Pennsylvania – Alright, now that we have established
a precedent for the regular safe practice of mail in voting in America…let’s
talk Pennsylvania and do our best to disentangle this mess. To get to the core issue
of the Pennsylvania situation we need to go back to 2019 (The Before Times). On
October 31st 2019, Governor Tom Wolfe signed into law Act 77. You
can read the governor’s press release on the law to get a better summary of it
(7).
The law was passed to expand mail in voting, give more time to vote, etc. The
law was a bipartisan bill to reform voting in Pennsylvania. More Democrats than
Republicans opposed the bill, because of a measure within the bill that eliminated
straight ticket voting. This may surprise you that Republicans were the main
proponents behind this bill, but that is indeed the case (8)(9).
So, the first thing that is to note, is that Pennsylvania expanded mail in
voting before Covid-19 was known about in the United States. But, lets now move
on to 2020. The GOP controlled house (R-113 & D-90) and GOP controlled
Senate (R 28 & D 21) both voted UNANIMOUSLY to pass Act 12 which amended Act
77 to allow counties to begin counting ballots on election day rather than
being required to wait until 8pm to do so in March. The amendment had no impact on the mail
in voting itself which is a measure that was overwhelming supported, given
Covid-19. This is important, because before this amendment Pennsylvania would
have to wait to begin counting and processing ballots until the end of the day,
including those that were mailed in.
Emily Previti has a very well sourced article for witf.org
that lays out the timeline. I’ll paraphrase her work here, but she has an
excellent day by day breakdown of the legal challenges and issues surrounding
Pennsylvania voting (Emily Previti Article 10).
June 1st, 14 hours before the polls opened for
the primary, Gov. Wolf signed an executive order to accept ballots that arrive
after the deadline until 5pm on the following Friday. The reason being that the
mail system was overwhelmed and needed additional time to play catch up. GOP
would go on to challenge this, but acknowledge that this would have no bearing
on the 2020 results. Officials had predicted a 20% increase in mail in voting.
Instead mail in voting grew by 10 fold.
June is a mess with mail ballots not fully counted until June
23rd. A report is asked for in search of data to fix this mess. And work
on another election bill is put forward. The Trump campaign starts its lawsuits
asking for the rejection of mailed ballot drop boxes and rejection of naked
ballots.
July is filled with the Democrats asking the courts for more
time its rejected. Asking election officials what needs to improve and prepaid
postage for ballots.
August has the release of the report asking for more time to
accept ballots and the preprocessing of ballots as far as 21 days before
Election Day. Trump admits to the withholding of funding from the USPS because
he thinks he will lose if enough people use mail in voting (11).
September – an election bill makes its way through congress
with people voting mainly along party lines because of a controversial provision
that would allow campaigns to assign poll watchers anywhere in the state, which
is something the Trump campaign was also pushing for in their lawsuits. The
normal rule is that a poll watcher can only work within the county of their
residence, which the Trump campaign wanted changed (12).
The Democrat controlled Supreme Court makes 3 election related decisions about the
election. Two are not controversial: funding for postage on mail in ballots, 3rd
party assistance for the return of mail-in votes is not successful. The more
controversial decision along party lines 4-3 was to affirm the law that poll
watchers can only operate in their county of residence AND to extend the
acceptance of mailed in ballots til the Friday after the Election as long as
they were postmarked by Nov. 3rd.
The PA Supreme Court made this decision based on a provision
from Act 77 that they exercised and referenced in their ruling.
“(2) The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has exclusive
jurisdiction to hear a challenge to or to render a declaratory judgment
concerning the constitutionality of a provision referred to in paragraph (1).
The Supreme Court may take action it deems appropriate, consistent with the
Supreme Court retaining jurisdiction over the matter, to find facts or to
expedite a final judgment in connection with such a challenge or request for
declaratory relief” (13).
PA Republicans challenged the ruling and asked SCOTUS to
intervene. They also push for a committee that would investigate elections but
the push is tanked when PA House GOP members end up testing positive for Covid-19.
The push then died.
October – Trump loses his attempts to get access for poll
watchers at ballot drop boxes and satellite election offices. He also loses in
his attempt to ban drop boxes. The PA legislature does not come to a consensus
about the preprocessing of election ballots, which would end up resulting in a
delay in counting the incoming votes. SCOTUS does not take up the challenge to
the extended time table that the PA Supreme Court ruled on.
PA Supreme Court also rules that a ballot cannot be rejected, because the
signature does not match exactly what is on file.
November – the massive voting delays that happened in June
are replicated in November. Everybody remembers how Trump was winning well into
the night on Nov. 3rd, but as the week wore on Biden caught up and
eventually won Pennsylvania by around 80k votes.
If you are an election official in Pennsylvania you have
been warning and knowing that there would be massive delays, based on what
happened in the early summer. They had asked for more time to pre-process
ballots and an extension of time because of a lagging time in the USPS.
Then came the lawsuits (Inquirer Article 14).
The Inquirer does a great job of listing the various lawsuits
that the Trump administration brought before the courts. They sue over poll
monitor access and try to relitigate points they have already lost in a court
of law. They seek to disqualify batches of mail ballots for procedural defects,
disparities in whether people were allowed to correct their ballots, opposition
to mail drop boxes, etc. I suggest reading the Inquirer article for more
details.
After these lawsuits failed, allegations of fraud were
brought forward without evidence by Trump and members of the Trump campaign. “When
U.S.Disctrict Judge Brann pressed Giuliani to explain why none of the specific
legal claims in the suit are based on voter fraud, the president’s lawyer admitted
the campaign isn’t pleading voter fraud at all. Later,
Brann asked whether he should apply a higher legal standard of “strict
scrutiny” to the case, which is required when fraud is alleged. If we had
alleged fraud, then yes, but this is not a fraud case,” Giuliani said quickly”
(15).
These same claims were made before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit, which upholded a lower courts rejection of the suit. In his opinion
Judge Stephanos Bibas (who is a Trump Court Appointee) stated, “Charges of
unfairness are serious,” Bibas wrote in the nonprecedential opinion. “But
calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific
allegations and then proof. We have neither here” (16).
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania also made a ruling on Nov.
28th after Rep. Kelly put forward a case to challenge Pennsylvania’s
vote by-mail law. The justices are split on the constitutionality of Act 77,
but ultimately are unanimous in their agreement that nothing untoward occurred
with the votes cast this election.
December - The Texas case Ken Paxton is then brought forward alleging
in irregularities that would dismiss Pennsylvania and several other states
electoral votes. SCOTUS dismisses the case for lack of standing (17).
Eventually the Pennsylvania Electoral Votes go through, are certified,
counted, and added to President Elect Biden’s total.
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So, you might be asking yourself. Why in God’s name did he
do all of this research about the recent history of Pennsylvania election
history. I wanted to make and prove several points with this post.
1. Mail in voting is safe, has been around for a long time, and an equal number of Red and Blue states utilize it.
Act 77 was passed by Republicans, amended by Republicans, and
gave the Supreme Court Authority which they used. President Trump cast many
lawsuits that challenged the provisions in the law that were rejected. His
legal strategy shifted to dismiss votes that were lifted up as legal by the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court. He then claimed fraud without evidence and continued to assert
fraud even though he wouldn’t make the claim in the courts, because he did not
actually have evidence to back up said claims. Republicans wanted to
specifically dismiss one vote on the ballot, the presidential election. They
simultaneously protected their own races and uplifted them as valid out of one
side of their mouth, while demonizing the presidential vote ON THE SAME BALLOT
with the other side of their mouths.
My final ending point that I want to make is this. It took
me a private citizen two evenings to read all of this and really investigate
the claims that were made and the recent history of Pennsylvania election law.
I am one man with a computer and an internet connection. You are telling me…that
Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz couldn’t order staffers WITH INFINITELY MORE RESOURCES
THEN I, to investigate these spurious election fraud claims?
So where does that leave us. One conclusion can be made with
certainty, Cruz and Hawley knowingly spread lies and falsehoods about the
integrity of the election, while simultaneously using the outrage and doubt
they had created in people’s minds as justification for seeking further
election security. They manufactured a crisis and used it for their own
political gain.
They are responsible and should be held accountable for their
part in the riots that happened on January 6th, because they fanned
the flames of falsehoods that created the fire that erupted on that day.
The Works Cited or Sourced
(1) https://www.vote.org/absentee-voting-rules/
(2) https://ballotpedia.org/Absentee/mail-in_voting
(3) https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-21/chapter-2/article-10/21-2-380/
(4) https://www.senate.michigan.gov/SFA/Publications/BallotProps/Proposal18-3.pdf
(5) https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/510379-nevada-governor-signs-bill-to-allow-mail-in-voting-after-trump-promises?fbclid=IwAR08rql0mEdXbUthp-rz6RHkAfoARsgIGhg-Q_8FojSW39XmMe47u0Sq_EQ
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting_in_the_United_States#Timeline_of_adoption_of_no-excuse_postal_voting
(7) https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/governor-wolf-signs-election-reform-bill-including-new-mail-in-voting/
(8) https://legiscan.com/PA/rollcall/SB421/id/887402
(9) https://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/RC/Public/rc_view_action2.cfm?sess_yr=2019&sess_ind=0&rc_body=H&rc_nbr=781
(10)Emily Previti Article - https://www.witf.org/2021/01/06/an-election-year-unlike-any-other-how-pennsylvanias-tumultuous-2020-election-unfolded/
(11)https://apnews.com/article/14a2ceda724623604cc8d8e5ab9890ed
(12)https://www.witf.org/2020/09/02/democrats-oppose-election-code-bill-on-track-for-party-line-passage-after-late-summer-stalemate/
(13)http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/J-97-2020pco%20-%20104548480113068412.pdf?cb=1
(14)Inquier Article https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-2020-election-lawsuits-timeline-20210107.html
(15)https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/trump-voter-fraud-claims-disappear-at-pennsylvania-court-hearing
(16)https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/3rd-circuit-calling-an-election-unfair-does-not-make-it-so
(17)https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/supreme-court-was-right-texas-didnt-have-standing
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