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Thursday's announcement by the committee overseen by state
senator Cris Dush marks the start to the "forensic
investigation" that hardcore supporters of former President
Donald Trump have been clamoring for in the battleground state,
spurred on by Trump's false claims of widespread voting fraud.
Dush, a Trump backer who in June toured the site of a
contentious audit ongoing in Arizona, was last month tapped to
chair the Pennsylvania Senate Intergovernmental Operations
Committee so he could push forward with the election probe.
"As part of the committee's comprehensive election integrity
investigation, Dush is encouraging voters to come forward if
they have witnessed voter irregularities or other election
improprieties firsthand," the committee said in a statement.
The committee said it created a webpage to collect testimony and
that anyone making a submission must be "comfortable signing an
affidavit and potentially testifying under oath at a Senate
committee hearing under penalty of perjury."
It scheduled the first hearing for Sept. 9 in Harrisburg.
The state's attorney general, Democrat Josh Shapiro, has been
critical of the push for another audit of the election, calling
a previous attempt at one a "sham" and a "partisan fishing
expedition" and vowing to fight against it.
Pennsylvania has already conducted a so-called risk-limiting
audit of the November election, and all counties also audited a
sample of their votes as mandated by law. Neither effort turned
up widespread fraud to put in question Trump's loss to President
Joe Biden in the state by 81,000 votes.
The previous attempt at a "forensic" probe of the 2020 election
by state senator Doug Mastriano was shut down last month
following a tussle between him and Senate President Pro Tempore
Jake Corman over his methods. Corman, the Senate's top
Republican, sidelined Mastriano, a vocal Trump supporter, after
the two traded public barbs.
Corman spokesman Jason Thompson said the goal of the
investigation was not to overturn Trump's loss.
"It is to restore faith in the system by strengthening election
security. That means conducting a thorough investigation that
goes much, much further than the limited audits required by
state law," he wrote in an email.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by
Michael Perry)
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