Pa. Senate Dems sue Republicans to block election review subpoena
Democrats in the Pennsylvania Senate sued their Republican colleagues Friday evening to block them from subpoenaing voter records as part of a review of the 2020 election.
The lawsuit argues that the Republican effort unconstitutionally tramples on the separation of powers by stepping on the courts’ power to investigate and rule on election disputes and on the executive branch’s power, given specifically to the state auditor general, to audit how elections are run. The lawsuit also contends that the subpoena violates state election law because it requests voters’ private information, including driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
Senate Democrats “ask this Court to prevent violation of the Pennsylvania Election Code and the Pennsylvania Constitution through [Republican lawmakers’] untimely election contest and to protect the rights of the approximately 6.9 million Pennsylvanians who cast votes in the 2020 General Election, including protection from the unlawful disclosure of their private information” in the state voter database, the suit reads.
Pa. Republicans vote to subpoena voter records and personal information in 2020 election probe
The lawsuit was filed by the Senate Democratic Caucus, headed by Democratic Leader Sen. Jay Costa (D., Allegheny), in Commonwealth Court, the state court that handles government issues. The defendants are Senate
President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R., Centre), the highest-ranking state senator and backer of the election review; Sen. Cris Dush (R., Jefferson), whom Corman assigned to lead the effort; and Megan Martin, the Senate’s secretary-parliamentarian.
In addition to asking the court to block Wednesday’s subpoena, Senate Democrats are attempting to stop the broader election review effort.
Jason Thompson, a spokesperson for Corman and Dush, declined to comment on the lawsuit itself. In a statement Saturday, he pushed back on Democrats’ security concerns around voter information.
“[I]t is disappointing the security issue has been sensationalized by Senate Democrats to the nth degree,” he said. The state legislature works with personal information “all the time ... and we have done so for many, many years without incident.”
He noted that both Corman and Dush have said that any third-party contractor given access to private information “will be required to meet the same high standards of information security under penalty of law.”
Pa. Republicans are set to subpoena documents and hire a contractor for their 2020 election review
Friday’s lawsuit was the first court attempt by Democrats to stop what Republican senators call a “forensic investigation” or “forensic audit” of election administration and results. At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat in a district based in Delaware County, asked Friday for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to investigate the “authorization of a subpoena of breathtaking scope.”
Scanlon, the vice chair of the Committee on House Administration, wrote in a letter with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.), the chair of that committee, that the two are concerned about the subpoena and broad election review effort intimidating voters, including potentially deterring people from registering if they believe their personal information will not be protected.,
Democrats say the effort, which officially began this month in the Republicancontrolled state Senate, is a nakedly partisan attempt to overturn election results, further undermine confidence in elections, and appease the Trump base.
Trump for months called for an “audit” of election results in Pennsylvania, with supporters rallying behind State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a likely gubernatorial candidate who has spread false claims about the 2020 election and risen to political prominence by promising to investigate the election. Republican legislative leaders sought to resist those calls by emphasizing legislative reform, but the rift between wings of the party grew as pressure mounted.
Why we’re not calling it an audit
The Inquirer is not currently referring to attempts by Pennsylvania Republicans to investigate the 2020 presidential election as an audit because there’s no indication it would follow the best practices or the common understanding of an audit among nonpartisan experts. When asked by The Inquirer, lawmakers leading the effort have not explained how it would actually be run, including whether best practices would be followed; who would be involved, including what role partisan politicians would play; how the review would be documented; how election equipment and ballots would be secured; and what the scope of any review would be. Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes. State and county audits affirmed the outcome, and there is no evidence of any significant fraud.