A rural Pennsylvania county formally declined to participate in an Arizona-style “forensic investigation” of the state’s 2020 presidential election sought by backers of former President Donald Trump, saying Thursday it would need new voting machines paid for and delivered within three weeks.
The three commissioners in Republican-controlled Tioga County had said two weeks ago that they would not allow third-party access to the county's voting machines for fear of seeing them decertified by the state just weeks before preparations must begin for November's election.
In a Thursday letter to Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the commissioners said they were declining his sweeping request for access to documents, information and equipment “at this time.”
They wrote that they had made clear they would cooperate if new voting machines were paid for and delivered by Aug. 20. But, they said, “so far, we have received no response to this request."
Meanwhile, in York County, which is also under pressure from Mastriano to comply with his request, county officials called police after receiving reports about people purporting to be from an “election integrity committee” going to homes and questioning the residents about their vote in the 2020 presidential election, the York Dispatch reported Thursday.
Mastriano has helped spread Trump's baseless falsehoods that the election was rigged against him.
