Fulton County, the only county in Pennsylvania to conduct an independent audit of its voting machines after the 2020 election, is appealing the unilateral decision of Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid to decertify the county’s voting machines in response to the audit, which was requested by members of the state legislature.
After decertify Fulton County’s election machines, Degraffenreid issued a directive to every county in the state saying that counties should not allow third-parties to see the inner workings of voting machines, and she is refusing to make available state funds designated for the counties to purchase new election machines.
“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,” said Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project, referring to recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice threatening possible prosecution of local government officials who conduct third-party audits of their elections. “This is particularly remarkable because the legislature, not the executive branch, has the constitutional responsibility and duty to manage elections.”
“There was no due process; the secretary just decertified machines,” said Tom King, one of the attorneys hired by Fulton County. “There were no rules at the time they did the audit that would have prohibited what they did.”
In addition to appealing the decertification decision, Fulton County will litigate ancillary issues that have arisen from the dispute.
“One of the central tenets of representative government is transparency,” Kline pointed out. “Fulton County should not be punished for attempting to provide the highest level of transparency possible.”
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SOURCE Amistad Project
