And guess who's attached to this all this drek?
(We'll get to it later.)
But in case you missed it:
A Pennsylvania judge has recommended the state's high court impose civil contempt penalties against a Republican-majority county government that this summer secretly allowed a third party to copy data from voting machines used in the 2020 election lost by former President Donald Trump.
Commonwealth Court President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer's 77-page report issued late Friday said the July inspection and copying of computer data from machines rented by Fulton County was a willful violation of a court order designed to prevent evidence from being spoiled.
She recommended that the justices find that the county, based on the actions of Republican Commissioners Stuart Ulsh and Randy Bunch, "engaged in vexatious, obdurate, and bad faith conduct" in their lawsuit against the Department of State over whether a 2021 inspection by another outside group meant the machines could no longer be used.
You can read the recommendation here.
Basically this is what happened:
103. Commissioners Ulsh and Bunch knew that by allowing the Speckin Inspection to proceed, they would be in violation of the Supreme Court’s Injunction Order. (pg 46)
But let's look at to some of the stuff adjacent to this recommendation, shall we?
Like this from Reuters:
Pennsylvania's top election official has decertified the voting equipment of a rural county that participated in an audit of the 2020 election requested by a Republican state lawmaker and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump.
Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid said on Wednesday that Fulton County violated the state election code by giving a third party access to its election databases and other certified equipment in an audit of the 2020 results.
The audit was conducted in December at the request of Republican state Senators Doug Mastriano and Judy Ward, who asked county officials to allow Wake Technology Services Inc to probe the county's results, according to media reports.
Didja see it? Didja? DIDJA?
But what's this about "Wake Technology Services Inc" and how does it relate to the "Speckin Investigation" mentioned in the recommendation?
Basically, this happened:
The Secretary decertified the Dominion Voting Equipment in Fulton County’s possession after the County permitted a third-party consultant known as Wake TSI, Inc. (Wake TSI) to inspect the Voting Equipment following its use in the 2020 General Election.
Then this happened:
On July 8, 2021, several months after Wake TSI’s investigation and report, the Secretary issued “Directive 1 of 2021” , which prohibited county boards of elections from providing physical, electronic, or internal access to third parties for purposes of conducting an examination of state-certified electronic voting systems.
Then this:
On October 18, 2022, the Secretary filed an application in the Supreme Court requesting an order holding Fulton County in contempt and imposing sanctions, alleging it violated the Supreme Court’s Injunction Order by allowing a different third party known as Speckin Forensics, LLC to inspect the Dominion Voting Equipment at issue in this litigation on July 13 and 14, 2022.
Which led to this:
All chain of custody has been broken, and it is now impossible to determine what the state of the Dominion Voting Equipment was immediately after the Wake TSI Inspection. That is, the Speckin Inspection rendered the Voting Equipment unreliable as evidence of what Wake TSI did, and it is impossible to reverse that effect.
And so on.
And it all began with this:
The company that is conducting a hand recount of nearly 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots conducted an election audit in rural Pennsylvania county at the request of a state senator who has been a prominent advocate of the “Stop the Steal” movement that has spread baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump.
According to records and news coverage from Fulton County, Penn., state senators Doug Mastriano and Judy Ward asked county officials to allow Wake Technology Services Inc. to conduct an audit of the election. Ward, who represents the rural county in southern central Pennsylvania, told the Arizona Mirror that she passed the request on to county officials at Mastriano’s behalf.
Now the he lost the governor's race (I'd say "Thank God!" But, according to Doug, God was supposed to make sure Doug won.), shouldn't someone ASK DOUG MASTRIANO WHAT HE KNOWS ABOUT:
- Wake Technology?
- Speckin Forensics?
Scratch the surface Trump's coup for any reference to Pennsylvania and you find DOUG MASTRIANO.
State Senator Doug Mastriano has a lot to answer for.
