Lawmakers Spar Over Election And Its Results As Pennsylvania Moves To Certify Biden's Win
HARRISBURG, Pa. (KDAK) -- A senior Republican lawmaker in Harrisburg says the state legislature has no intention of overturning the votes of Pennsylvanians or substituting its own slate of electors.
That concern arose when, on a mostly party-line vote, House Republicans ordered an audit of the Nov. 3 election results.
Republican lawmakers say they just want to correct, for future elections, any problems that arose out of this one and. Republican lawmakers insist they are not looking to replace Biden electors with Trump electors. Democrats say they are not so sure.
"There is political pressure from some of Donald Trump's biggest supporters to try to delay certification of the presidential election," says Pa. Rep. Kevin Boyle, the senior Democrat on the House State Government Committee and the Government Oversight Committee.
Monday is the last day for counties to certify their election results. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar is expected to certify that Joe Biden won Pennsylvania.
But the Republican state House of Representatives just voted to require an audit of election returns.
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"We instructed them to do a risk-limiting audit of the 2020 general election," Pa. State Rep. Seth Grove told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Friday.
Grove, the Republican chair of both the State Government Committee and the Government Oversight Committee, says this audit will take 90 days and won't impact this election.
"The goal of the audit is to get beyond all that other stuff and dive down into the data and the realities of what happened in this election. So in the future, we can make sure it doesn't happen again," Grove said.
Boyle says audits like these are just a waste of time and a way for the GOP to appease its Trump base.
"There is absolutely no evidence presented that would have impacted the ultimate outcome of Joe Biden's victory," says Boyle.
As for changing the Biden electors to Trump electors, Grove says state law from 1856 is clear that the winner of the popular vote gets the electors, and you can't change that after the fact.
"The thought that the general assembly by resolution could change a law is a very dangerous principle for anybody," says Grove.
