MCCONNELLSBURG – In response to the Pennsylvania Department of State’s decertification of Fulton County’s voting machines, an election integrity group has secured legal counsel to defend its action to conduct a post-election audit of those same machines.
Subsequent to the 2020 Presidential Election, GOP legislators such as Sen. Doug Mastriano (R – Gettysburg) and Sen. Judy Ward (R – Altoona) requested that Fulton County, located in Southern Central Pennsylvania, conduct an audit of its voting machines. Fulton County was the only one in the state to do so.
When Fulton County provided access to its machines to a third-party organization, West Chester-based software company Wake Technology Services, Inc., Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid ordered in a letter to the county dated July 20 that the machines be decertified and prohibited from being used to record votes in future elections.
“As you have confirmed through our correspondence, Fulton County officials allowed Wake TSI, a company with no knowledge or expertise in election technology access to certain key components of its certified system. Fulton County officials permitted Wake TSI employees to access their ‘election database, results files, and Windows system logs,” Degraffenreid said.
“Further, the county allowed this third-party entity to use some type of ‘system imaging tool to take complete hard drive images of these computers’ and ‘complete images of two USB thumb drives’ used to transfer results files from their voting system computers to the computers used to upload results to the state’s voter registration and election results reporting system. These actions were taken in a manner that was not transparent or bipartisan.”
Degraffenreid alleged that the unauthorized access constituted a violation of Pennsylvania election law relating to chain of custody, and is not permitting state funds to go to Fulton County to purchase or lease new voting machines.
Degraffenreid then issued a similar directive that any county in the state who follows suit in allowing third parties to audit their voting machines as Fulton County did, will not be eligible to receive such state funds.
“I have a statutory obligation to examine, evaluate and certify electronic voting systems. These reviews include verifying that the voting system conforms to federal and state law and any regulations or standards regarding confidentiality, security, accuracy, safety, reliability, usability, accessibility, durability, resiliency, and auditability,” Degraffenreid said.
Mastriano issued a statement in response, claiming that Degraffenreid was abusing her governmental power in opposing a forensic investigation of the state’s voting machines.
“On the heels of a veiled threat disguised as a ‘directive’ to all counties in Pennsylvania two weeks ago, the Acting Secretary of State is once again abusing the power of her department to punish and intimidate local governments and their taxpayers,” Mastriano said.
“Without any proof of compromised parts or an examination of voting machines, the Acting Secretary is taking it upon herself to unilaterally decertify all machines in Fulton County and force the taxpayers of that county to pay for it.”
President Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by almost 81,000 votes in November. The Trump campaign then filed a series of lawsuits alleging mail-in voter fraud, which were later dismissed. A number of GOP legislators supported the Trump campaign’s legal efforts, Mastriano included.
The Amistad Project & Legal Counsel Enter the Audit Fight
The Amistad Project, a Virginia-based election integrity group, recently announced its cooperation with Fulton County in defending its action to audit its voting machines.
Phill Kline, Director of The Amistad Project, explained that recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice threatened possible prosecution of local government officials who conduct third-party audits of their elections.
“It’s concerning that we see what is apparently a nationally coordinated effort to intimidate local government from participating with the legislature in understanding what happened. This is particularly remarkable because the legislature, not the executive branch, has the constitutional responsibility and duty to manage election,” Kline said.
“One of the central tenets of representative government is transparency. Fulton County should not be punished for attempting to provide the highest level of transparency possible.”
Kline added that The Amistad Project “supports any effort to increase election transparency, which is a critical component of any fair election.”
Not only is Fulton County appealing Degraffenreid’s decertification decision, but The Amistad Project said the county will litigate other issues which have arisen from the dispute. To that end, the Butler-based firm of Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham will represent Fulton County in those proceedings.
“There was no due process; the secretary just decertified machines. There were no rules at the time they did the audit that would have prohibited what they did,” Tom King, a member of counsel for Fulton County, said.
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com