State College’s Council opposes GOP push to audit 2020 election, calls Corman’s move a ‘disservice’
The State College Borough Council formally opposed the state GOP’s recent announcement to audit the 2020 election, chastising Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, for his role in what it characterized as a partisan and baseless move.
The council voted unanimously Monday night to pass a resolution opposing the audit. Copies will be sent to both Corman and Sen. Chris Dush, who heads the committee charged with what it referred to as a “forensic investigation.”
“Sen. Corman has done a number of services for this borough, and I deeply appreciate them and don’t want to discount them,” Council President Jesse Barlow said. “But this forensic audit is a disservice to the borough and to the commonwealth. It’s based upon a lie by people who would rather suppress votes than win them.”
Corman announced Friday that he wants to issue subpoenas for information and testimony from top state election officials and the state’s voter registration system. The committee overseeing the audit, the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, is scheduled to meet 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Many have taken that as a sign that Pennsylvania Republicans will follow in the footsteps of Arizona’s Senate GOP, whose widely discredited “audit” began with subpoenas in search of fraud to legitimize former President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories that the election was rigged against him.
As the borough’s resolution notes, that comes despite the Department of Homeland Security calling the election, back in November, “the most secure in American history” and despite at least 63 election lawsuits, many of which the Brennan Center for Justice characterized as having “outlandish claims of voter fraud, egregious lack of evidence and misuse of the judiciary.” All 67 Pennsylvania counties have also undergone a required post-election audit involving a statistical sample, and 63 counties volunteered for an additional statewide risk-limiting audit.
In a written statement to the CDT, Corman spokesman Jason Thompson railed against the resolution, pointing out it incorrectly referred to the formation of an “election audit” committee. The committee is an existing one — so the audit is new, not the committee.
“It takes about seven seconds and a working knowledge of Google to figure out the basic facts in their resolution are wrong,” Thompson said. “If they aren’t even willing to make sure their information is accurate before they vote, it does not lend much credibility to their recommendations. Nonetheless, their long-standing opposition to election integrity and their difficulty with the facts are both duly noted.”
Before reading the resolution aloud Monday night, Barlow took time to recount a political story from his time in Lawrence, Kansas. When the 26th Amendment was ratified, lowering the voting age to 18 in 1971, Barlow recalled how there was a lot of pressure on the local Republican county clerk to discourage student votes. It was the Vietnam era, after all, complete with campus riots, two Kansas students killed by police, and more.
But the county clerk put country over party, came to campus and registered the newly eligible student voters.
“That seems today as though it happened on another planet,” Barlow said. “Today, there’s a ‘Big Lie’ that President (Joe) Biden’s win in Pennsylvania was fraudulent. The state Senate has bowed to that lie and has created this forensic audit committee. It is likely that it will be used as an excuse to make it harder for people to vote who don’t vote their way; that usually includes Black and Brown people, and students.”
According to certified results, Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 6:42 PM.
