Earlier this year a Republican and partisan election audit was launched in Arizona. It was motivated not by the intent to strengthen American democracy but to satisfy one man, Donald Trump, who has repeatedly lied that he was cheated out of victory in the last presidential election. Now as the results of that sham audit loom, more Grand Old Party (GOP) leaders are pushing for new reviews further endangering America’s democracy. This article published by Politico is written by Zach Montellaro. Here is an excerpt:

GOP legislative leaders in key battleground states are increasingly embracing 2020 election investigations that they once held at arm’s length, as Arizona Republicans await a long-delayed final report from their own conspiracy-tinged “audit.”

Top Republicans in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have recently thrown their support behind new hunts for fraud or irregularities in the last election. Pennsylvania state Senate President Jake Corman sidelined a prominent Republican backbencher who had tried to lead an investigation and instead empowered a committee chair to launch one with his support. That effort is hiring vendors and scheduling hearings.

There is no mechanism to actually overturn the certified results of the 2020 election. But what these investigations could do is fuel former President Donald Trump’s lies about the election or prompt new efforts to enact state voting restrictions. Corman — who has called for a 2020 election review since November — recently told a conservative radio host that he had spoken with Trump about the efforts, describing the former president as “comfortable where we’re heading.”

Read the full article here.

Republican legislative leaders in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are putting new weight behind Trump’s push to investigate and discredit 2020 results.