‌Local GOP Chair Tees Off On Pennsylvania Audit ‌

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On the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, now a shell of its former self, Congress doesn’t yet have much to show for six months of talk about the sanctity of the ballot. And, as sham “audits” proliferate around the country, I spoke to one GOPer in Pennsylvania who’s none too happy with the trend. More on that below.

 

Got‌ ‌a‌ ‌voting‌ ‌rights‌ ‌story‌ ‌you‌ ‌think‌ ‌our‌ ‌readers‌ ‌should‌ ‌hear?‌ ‌Respond‌ ‌to‌ ‌this‌ ‌email‌ ‌and‌ ‌tell‌ ‌me‌ ‌about‌ ‌it.‌ ‌You‌ ‌can‌ ‌also‌ ‌call,‌ ‌text‌ ‌or‌ ‌Signal‌ ‌message‌ ‌me‌ ‌at‌ ‌646-397-4678.‌ ‌ ‌

 

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The Feds

The attorney general has limits, constitutionally speaking. And he wants Congress to do its job for voting rights. 

• Merrick Garland concluded a Washington Post op-ed Thursday: “On this anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we must say again that it is not right to erect barriers that make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote. And it is time for Congress to act again to protect that fundamental right.”

We’re seeing some signs of life on that front, but there aren’t many specifics to report: The Senate majority leader is reportedly telling Democrats to expect a vote this week. A vote on what? 

• According to The New York Times, “As of Thursday, senior Democrats were still trying to hash out what exactly they would vote on in the coming days.”
• The Wall Street Journal published some details on those negotiations Friday afternoon: The negotiations are reportedly centered on Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) “compromise” framework released in June, which cut away parts of the For The People Act but kept key measures. One key sticking point: “Manchin has pushed for a mandate that all states require voter ID, with documentation such as utility bills counting toward the ID requirement.” With this rather large concession, Manchin has reportedly said he believes he can get Republicans to support the measure. Count us skeptical.

Separately, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has a narrow standalone option: the Protecting Election Administration from Interference Act.

 

On the redistricting front, the Washington Post has a useful survey of where things stand: A decade ago, Democrats weren’t “fully able to understand what happened until it was done,” said author and redistricting expert David Daley.

 

No longer. Now, the fight has become “entrenched warfare,” with armies of lawyers and lawmakers, the Brennan Center’s Michael Li said. Crucially, thanks to the Supreme Court’s devastating 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, the federal government has no authority to preclear any map changes from states with histories of racial discrimination.

 

Extremely relevant: As the Wall Street Journal reports, a change in the Census Bureau’s statistical work — known as “differential privacy” and used to protect respondents’ confidentiality — has some researchers and local officials, especially those from largely minority areas, worried about the accuracy of the count.

 

TPM looked into the change in December: “The biggest impacts are likely to come in analyses of racially polarized voters,” Justin Levitt, then an election law professor at Loyola Marymount, told Tierney Sneed. Now, Levitt is a senior policy advisor in the White House focusing on democracy and voting rights. 

Around The Country

On Saturday, VIRGINIA GOP gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin attended an “election integrity” rally at Liberty University. The two-day event was closed to the press. His ticketmates — the GOP nominees for lieutenant general and attorney general — opted not to attend, despite initially being listed as featured speakers. While he heavily promoted other campaign stops over last weekend, the election integrity rally does not seem to appear on Youngkin’s social media accounts, highlighting the difficulty of his attempts to both pass the Republican litmus test of supporting the Big Lie and not alienate moderates in a purple-blue state like Virginia.

 

In KANSAS, one consequence of a new voting law: No more voter registration drives from the League of Women Voters.

 

TEXAS Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is turning the screws on Democratic legislators who fled the state rather than provide a quorum for a new voting restriction bill. The governor called yet another special session, from which the Democrats will remain absent, at least for now.

 

One WISCONSIN election official made an innocent joke to a friend after some late absentee ballots put Biden over the edge in the state. Now, right-wing outlets have dug up the exchange and stirred up a storm of abuse.

 

Finally, CNN has a great timeline on Trump’s efforts to overturn the results in GEORGIA, which is still under criminal investigation.

 

Two COLORADO lawyers, meanwhile, received a judicial smackdown for the ages for their own “copy-job” Big Lie lawsuit. 

The Latest In Audit Mania

None of the three PENNSYLVANIA counties targeted by State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) has laid out a plan for giving him the election materials he wants for his “investigation” of the 2020 election, despite Mastriano’s July 31 deadline. The state senator wants a lengthy list of evidence, from ballots to voting machines to security procedures. Now, Mastriano says he’ll follow through onhis threat to the counties and get his committee to vote for subpoenas.

 

TPM spoke to one of many Republicans who’s none too happy with Mastriano’s work: Jeff Piccola, former decades-long state legislator who’s now chair of the York County Republican Committee. In addition to being one of the three counties targeted by Mastriano for election materials, York is also partially represented by Mastriano in the Senate.

 

“Sen. Mastriano’s proposed audit has been handled very poorly,” Piccola told TPM. “I understood very little of what was in [Mastriano’s list of requested materials], and I was in the state legislature for 36 years. When I don’t understand something, it’s going to cost a lot of money. And the commissioners verified that. They said they just don’t have the manpower to assemble that information.”

 

“We ran, and run, a very honest and upfront and transparent election,” Piccola said. “I’ve been involved in elections for the last 45 years, and they don’t come any cleaner than the one in York County.”

 

Over in ARIZONA, Maricopa County has refused yet another subpoena from the GOP-controlled state Senate, this time for routers, passwords, and other materials. At least one state senator wants the county’s leaders jailed. Also, remember that bogus statistic the auditors trotted out about 74,000 questionable mail-in votes? The bogus statistic that Donald Trump later made the centerpiece of a speech in Phoenix?

 

Turns out lead auditor Doug Logan of audit contractor Cyber Ninjas, the source of the nonsense, “had records from Maricopa County election officials showing that almost every one of those voters had legally cast a legitimate ballot at an in-person early voting center,” the Arizona Mirror reports.

 

In WISCONSIN, a state senator who made the pilgrimage to the Arizona audit site (paid for by One America News Network host Christina Bobb’s fundraising group) has sent subpoenas to two counties in her own state. The only problem? The subpoenas seem to rip off Mastriano’s Pennsylvania documents, leading to duplicate typos and irrelevant requests.

 

We reported last month on a budding audit in TEXAS, but, of course, one that would focus only on the state’s largest counties — most of which lean blue. Turns out, focusing an audit in that way would lead auditors to miss some minor, but nonfictional errors.

 

On the other hand, the legislator pushing the audit wonders why anyone would bother with smaller counties. “What’s the point?” he asked. “I mean, all the small counties are red.”

 

MICHIGAN’s top election official has told the board of commissioners in Cheboygan county that they don’t have the authority to audit the last election: only the secretary of state and county clerks can. 

Slate: Trump Is Planning a Much More Respectable Coup Next Time
 

New York Times: Thomas Jefferson Gave the Constitution 19 Years. Look Where We Are Now.
 

Washington Post: The voting fix that cannot wait: Stopping partisan gerrymandering

Bloomberg Government: Meet the Technocrat Who Keeps Killing Trump Voter Fraud Claims

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