It’s a race to the bottom in the Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate primary as candidates fight to prove their Trump credentials and rush to endorse state Republicans’ latest sham, partisan push for an “audit” that aims to undermine the very voters they are running to represent.
Last week, Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano escalated his efforts to conduct an additional “audit” of Pennsylvania’s 2020 vote — the latest episode in national Republicans’ coordinated effort to overrule and undermine voters. And rather than stand up for Pennsylvanians and their voting rights, the state’s Republican Senate candidates responded by… endorsing the “audit:”
- Sean Parnell on Friday tweeted, “Pennsylvania citizens & their businesses are subject to audit at any time […] let the process play out.”
- Jeff Bartos previously said, “We need a full forensic audit in all the states where we had issues.”
- Carla Sands last week said during an interview (at 58:56), “I believe they’re working toward [an audit] […] There’s a lot of complications around the election, and we all saw what we saw.”
For months the candidates have trafficked in misinformation about the 2020 election — part of their party’s concerted effort to undermine and overrule Pennsylvania voters, and their individual political strategies to prove their pro-Trump credentials.
Parnell previously refused to concede the 2020 election he lost — then walked back his rejection of the election’s results, only to later reverse himself. And Sands likewise has a record of pushing false claims about the election, including the baseless and disproven claim that her 2020 ballot went uncounted.
Published: Jul 12, 2021