Guidance from the Department of Justice:
The Department is also committed to ensuring that American elections are secure and reflect the choices made on the ballots cast by eligible citizens. “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” according to a Joint Statement issued by federal and state officials and released by the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency. In many jurisdictions, there were automatic recounts or canvasses pursuant to state law due to the closeness of the election results. None of those state law recounts produced evidence of either wrongdoing or mistakes that casts any doubt on the outcome of the national election results.
And after stating that while individual states can establish different methods for their election processes, all of them must adhere to Federal guidelines regarding the retention of the voting records. Then the guidance says:
The Department interprets the Civil Rights Act to require that covered elections records “be retained either physically by election officials themselves, or under their direct administrative supervision.” Federal Prosecution of Elections Offenses at 79. “This is because the document retention requirements of this federal law place the retention and safekeeping duties squarely on the shoulders of election officers.” Id. If a state or local election authority designates some other individual or organization to take custody of the election records covered by Section 301, then the Civil Rights Act provides that the “duty to retain and preserve any record or paper so deposited shall devolve upon such custodian.” 52 U.S.C. § 20701. Therefore, if the original election official who has custody of records covered by the Act hands over those election records to other officials (for example, to legislators or other officeholders) or the official turns over the records to private parties (such as companies that offer to conduct “forensic examinations”), the Department interprets the Act to require that “administrative procedures be in place giving election officers ultimate management authority over the retention and security of those election records, including the right to physically access” such records. Id. In other words, the obligation to retain and preserve election records remains intact regardless of who has physical possession of those records. Jurisdictions must ensure that if they conduct post-election ballot examinations, they also continue to comply with the retention and preservation requirements of Section 301.
Think of this you read this:
[State Senator] Mastriano’s letter [of July 7, 2021]to the counties states that legislative changes to the election code, the COVID-19 pandemic, state Supreme Court rulings and actions by former Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar “presented unprecedented challenges” and “combined to cause a great burden on counties and county officials during the general election cycle.”
The letter requests that counties turnover potentially hundreds of thousands of items, including all ballots cast in the 2020 election, voter rolls, ballot paper samples, cybersecurity protocols, software used through the election process, and the machines used to tabulate results, among others.
So when/if this were to take place in Pennsylvania election authorities must have "ultimate management authority" over those records. If not the DOJ says:
There are federal criminal penalties attached to willful failures to comply with the retention and preservation requirements of the Civil Rights Act. First, Section 301 itself makes it a federal crime for “[a]ny officer of election” or “custodian” of election records to willfully fail to comply with the retention and preservation requirements. 52 U.S.C. § 20701. Second, Section 302 provides that any “person, whether or not an officer of election or custodian, who willfully steals, destroys, conceals, mutilates, or alters any record or paper” covered by Section 301’s retention and preservation requirement is subject to federal criminal penalties. Id. § 20702. Violators of either section can face fines of up to $1000 and imprisonment of up to one year for each violation.Will you be paying attention to the law, Senator Mastriano?
I realize that's an iffy question, given your adjacent (at best) participation in the insurrection of January 6, but still I gotta ask.
