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Former Mayor and Congressman Lou Barletta, Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, today announced that he is assembling an election integrity advisory board to address the serious concerns about the security of Pennsylvania's elections. Back in December, Barletta called for a full forensic audit of the 2020 election to identify any problematic issues that may have taken place over the course of the election. The advisory board will be co-chaired by Fayette County Commissioner David Lohr, Butler County Commissioner Leslie Osche, and Columbia County Commissioner Chris Young.
Barletta issued the following statement:
“The top issue I hear from people as I travel the Commonwealth is they feel that our election system is broken. They are angry about 2019's Act 77, which created no-excuse mail-in voting and paved the way for partisan abuse of the law in 2020. And they wonder how it was allowed to pass in the first place. As a result, I, along with millions of other Pennsylvanians, have serious concerns about how our elections were administered last year. Governor Wolf's gross mismanagement of our elections, and the ill-considered Act 77, injected chaos into what is supposed to be the bedrock of our democracy - voting.
"If we truly want to secure Pennsylvania's elections we must take a community-based approach which is why I've assembled a group of County Commissioners from across Pennsylvania who are actually on the ground in their communities and oversee elections in their respective counties. These trusted individuals will help me craft my policies towards finding a common sense solution to repeal Act 77 and restore trust and transparency to our elections. Pennsylvanians have the right to know that our elections are safe and secure and we must do everything in our power to ensure issues stemming from the 2020 election never happen again."
Members of the advisory board also weighed in on the importance of the issue.
"The 2020 election in Pennsylvania was a total disaster. Governor Wolf completely botched the implementation of our election and embarrassed Pennsylvania on a global stage. Wolf's administration continually changed guidance and procedures right up until 8 p.m. on election night, used a terribly poor statewide unified registry SURE system that was riddled with errors, and created chaos for both election bureaus and voters with their erroneous and misleading online ballot tracking system. I am grateful for the opportunity to help Lou Barletta develop a comprehensive, common sense policy to fix these issues and to secure Pennsylvania's elections once and for all."
- Butler County Commissioner Leslie Osche
"A governor's job is to do what is right by the people he or she represents. What Lou Barletta is doing is truly transformational. He is showcasing his leadership and demonstrating what kind of governor he will be by assembling a qualified team of individuals from different areas of the Commonwealth to find a community-based solution to this issue. I applaud Lou Barletta for taking a proactive approach to address this very serious issue and I look forward to working closely with him to find a solution that will make it easier to vote, but harder to cheat."
- Fayette County Commissioner David Lohr
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