Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania on Friday announced a resolution they will soon be introducing to dispute the results of the 2020 election.
The resolution “declares that the selection of presidential electors and other statewide electoral contest results in this commonwealth is in dispute” and “urges the secretary of the commonwealth and the governor to withdraw or vacate the certification of presidential electors and to delay certification of results in other statewide electoral contests voted on at the 2020 general election.”
It also “urges the United States Congress to declare the selection of presidential electors in this Commonwealth to be in dispute.”
They added, “We believe this moment is pivotal and important enough that the General Assembly needs to take extraordinary measures to answer these extraordinary questions. We also believe our representative oversight duty as Pennsylvania’s legislative branch of government demands us to re-assume our constitutional authority and take immediate action.”
The proposed text lists three steps taken by the judicial and executive branches to change the rules of the election.
First, on Sept. 17, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court “unlawfully and unilaterally” extended the deadline by which mail ballots could be received, mandated that ballots without a postmark would be treated as timely, and allowed for ballots without a verified voter signature to be accepted, the resolution says.
Second, on Oct. 23, upon a petition from the secretary of the commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that signatures on mail-in ballots need not be authenticated.
And third, on Nov. 2, the secretary of the commonwealth “encouraged certain counties to notify party and candidate representatives of mail-in voters whose ballots contained defects,” the resolution says.
All of the changes are contrary to the Pennsylvania Election Code, which requires mail-in ballots to be received at 8 p.m. on Election Day, mandates that signatures on the mail-in ballots be authenticated, and forbids the counting of defective mail-in ballots.
The resolution also lists a variety of election irregularities and potential fraud, including the issues brought up by witnesses during the hearing before the Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee on Nov. 25.
“On November 24, 2020, the Secretary of the Commonwealth unilaterally and prematurely certified results of the November 3, 2020 election regarding presidential electors despite ongoing litigation,” the resolution states.
“The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has the duty to ensure that no citizen of this Commonwealth is disenfranchised, to insist that all elections are conducted according to the law, and to satisfy the general public that every legal vote is counted accurately.”
Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, said Friday that the GOP-controlled state legislature will make a bid to reclaim its power to appoint the state’s electors to the Electoral College, saying they could start the process on Nov. 30.
“I’ve spent two hours online trying to coordinate this with my colleagues. And there’s a lot of good people working this here. Saying, that the resolution saying we’re going to take our power back. We’re gonna seat the electors. Now obviously we’re gonna need the support of the leadership of the House and Senate, we’re getting there on that.”
