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Two of Warren County's state senators are co-sponsoring legislation requiring a report to be compiled on 2020 elections complaints.
State Sens. Michele Brooks, R-Crawford/Erie/Mercer/Warren; Scott Hutchinson, R-Butler/Clarion/Forest/Venango/Warren; and Doug Mastriano, R-Adams/Cumberland/Franklin/York; have co-sponsored Senate Bill 71 to require the state Department of State to submit a report to the General Assembly regarding how the complaints relating to the Nov. 3, 2020, general election were investigated.
The bill would require a report about complaints submitted to the state Department of State Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation; complaints submitted to the state Department of State through the department's formal election complaint publicly accessible internet website, and complaints submitted to the state Department of State through its voter hotline. The information in the report is to include the complaint, polling precinct and county in which the complaint originated, what actions the department took to investigate the complaint and the outcome of the investigation.
The legislation was referred to the State Government Committee, of which Mastriano is a member.
The legislation comes at the same time the General Assembly's State Government Committee is holding a series of hearings through April 22 to review the state's election law and election operations of the state and county governments.
"We saw multiple inconsistencies in the Department of State's guidance during the 2020 General Election, which we must correct to ensure the integrity of future elections," said Rep. Keith Gillespie, R-Hellam. "These hearings will examine those inconsistencies at all levels of the election process and help develop plans to address them as needed."
Margo Davidson, D-Delawre and House of Representatives State Government Committee Democratic chairperson, said the hearings are unnecessary and ask questions already answered during hearings dating back as far as 2019.
"While there are some voters and some counties in Pennsylvania that will never be happy with the results of this election, the fact of the matter is that it was free, fair, accurate and uniform as declared by Homeland Security officials, the Justice Department, state courts, federal courts, members of Congress and members of the Senate who in a bi-partisan way overwhelming accepted the results of the election despite nefarious objections," Davidson said. "When this political theatre has finally ended and we begin to contemplate changes to our state election laws, I hope that this Republican majority does not consider changes that would disenfranchise voters. There are things that we can and should do to improve the voting process, such as allowing counties to pre-canvass ballots in order to ensure timely results are recorded on Election Day."