Trump doubles down on allegations of election fraud in Pennsylvania as Biden begins transition

President Trump doubled down on unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania in a phone call from the Oval Office, broadcast to Wednesday’s state Senate Republican postmortem hearing on the Nov. 3 election.

“This election was rigged and we can’t let that happen for our country and we’ve got to turn this around. We won Pennsylvania by a lot and we won all those states by a lot,” Trump said to the meeting, which was requested by the Trump for President Campaign Legal Team.

His surprise call to the audience of the Senate Majority Policy Committee, meeting in a Gettysburg hotel, came a day after Pennsylvania certified Joe Biden’s 80,000 vote victory in the state and the secretary of the U.S. General Services Administration released federal funds set aside for the Biden-Harris transition.

Although Trump’s lawyers have lost dozens of election challenges in state and federal courts across the country and have been chastised by federal judges for failing to provide evidence to support their claims, GOP lawmakers in Pennsylvania continue to question the outcome of the Nov. 3 election.

Chief among their questions was the widespread use of mail-in ballots, which were promoted as a safety measure during the pandemic. The expansion of mail-in voting was part of the Act 77 voting reforms in October 2019, which passed with overwhelming Republican support. The Pennsylvania Republican Party actively promoted mail-in voting for its “strong chain of custody and other significant oversight protections.”

State Sen. Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, the Senate Majority leader-elect, was among those on the panel Wednesday who questioned so-called irregularities in the election.

“We have been inundated with calls and messages and in our social media. People are not feeling good about the process,” Ward said, calling for room to allow Trump’s team to explore every avenue.

State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Fayette, also was among those who attended the hearing via remote link.

Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani testified before the panel and repeated claims of voter fraud in Pennsylvania. Trump was ahead in the early phase of vote counting on election night, and lost as mail-in votes were tabulated over the following days. In Pennsylvania, 1.7 million mail-in voters were registered Democrats while 623,000 were Republicans.

Pointing to similar results in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia, where Biden ultimately won, the former New York City mayor suggested a vast conspiracy was afoot.

He further alleged that Pennsylvania counted more absentee ballots than it sent out. Yet the Department of State reported on its website that, as of Oct. 27, it had processed 3.1 million applications for absentee ballots.

He presented several poll watchers from Philadelphia, Montgomery County and Allegheny County as witnesses Wednesday. All of them testified that they were not permitted to be close enough to observe the mail-in vote count, even though a court challenge in Philadelphia eventually set specific parameters for observers.

“It was disappointing,” said Kim Peterson, the Allegheny County witness, charging that video feeds were too grainy to provide much detail of the process.

Giuliani’s witnesses also repeated reports of irregularities including individuals who had not requested mail-in ballots receiving them and others being forced to vote by provisional ballots when poll books suggested they had received mail-in ballots.

State Democrats were quick to dismiss both Giuliani and the GOP-led hearing.

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, called the hearing a waste of taxpayer dollars and the height of hypocrisy.

“If Senate Republicans want to entertain conspiracy theories from Rudy Giuliani and rally with defeated presidential candidate Donald Trump, they should do so on their own time and dime – not the taxpayers’,” Costa said. “Our process was secure and our count is accurate: a count that was certified this week, making today’s hearing even more inappropriate.”

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican who is a longtime Trump critic, made a statement on Twitter: “History will record the shameful irony that a president who lied to avoid military service staged a bogus event on the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg in a brazen attempt to undermine the Republic for which scores of real patriots had fought & died to preserve since its founding.”

History will record the shameful irony that a president who lied to avoid military service staged a bogus event on the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg in a brazen attempt to undermine the Republic for which scores of real patriots had fought & died to preserve since its founding.

— Gov. Tom Ridge (@GovRidge) November 25, 2020

But Ward, who was an ardent Trump supporter, said she is concerned about how the process played out in Philadelphia and that it took a court order to get poll watchers access that they dismissed as insufficient.

“That was a travesty that should never happened and we should probably close that out,” she said.

She also said she’s disturbed by Giuliani’s allegations that the state received more mail-in ballots than it sent out, but conceded she could find no reports to back up that assertion.

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Categories:
Election | News | Pennsylvania | Top Stories

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from TribLIVE can be found here ***