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Senate Republicans in Pennsylvania revive election bill over 2020 complaints

The commonwealth, like other battleground states where Trump lost, is still roiled by Trump's baseless claims that 2020's presidential election was stolen from him.

  • Marc Levy/The Associated Press
Luzerne County workers canvas ballots that arrived after closing of voting until Friday at 5 p.m. and postmarked by Nov. 3rd as vote counting in the general election continues, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

 Mary Altaffer / AP Photo

Luzerne County workers canvas ballots that arrived after closing of voting until Friday at 5 p.m. and postmarked by Nov. 3rd as vote counting in the general election continues, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

(Harrisburg) — Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Senate approved a bill Monday that orders a number of changes to state laws over partisan election observers in polling places and election offices, a throwback to complaints in 2020 by former President Donald Trump that the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia needed to be watched closely for election fraud.

Pennsylvania, like other battleground states where Trump lost, is still roiled by Trump’s baseless claims that 2020’s presidential election was stolen from him. It has helped drive a wider partisan stalemate in election-related legislation in Pennsylvania’s statehouse.

The bill passed, 30-19, with every Republican and one Democrat backing it.

The sponsor, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor who has spread baseless claims about election fraud, said the bill would “restore trust and integrity in elections.”

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, left, a Republican running for Governor of Pennsylvania, arrives at a campaign stop Tuesday, May 10, 2022, in Portersville, Pa. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

However, the office of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said in a statement that the administration strongly opposes the bill and that it “does nothing to increase access to voting.”

One provision in the bill would remove the county residency requirement in state law for certified poll watchers, freeing them to come from anywhere in the state.

Trump had pushed for such a change in 2020, failing in court. Wolf has threatened to veto such Republican legislation previously, with Democrats calling it a voter intimidation tactic.

The bill also would raise the number of partisan poll watchers allowed into each polling place during voting and give them access to “any facility where votes are collected.”

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file

FILE – A canvas observer photographs Lehigh County provisional ballots as vote counting in the general election continues, Nov. 6, 2020, in Allentown, Pa. A review by The Associated Press in the six battleground states disputed by former President Trump has found fewer than 475 cases of potential voter fraud, a minuscule number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)

In 2020, Trump campaign aides complained that Philadelphia city officials had prevented campaign representatives from watching people registering to vote or filling out mail-in ballots in newly opened satellite election offices there.

The campaign sued and lost in court, with judges saying Pennsylvania law did not allow partisan representatives to observe in election offices.

Another provision in the bill would require partisans who are certified to watch election workers processing mail-in or absentee ballots to “have a clear line of sight to view and hear the proceedings at a distance of six feet or less.”

The Trump campaign had sued — and lost — in state and federal courts over its complaints that its observers were not allowed close enough to scrutinize mail-in ballots as they were being processed in heavily Democratic Philadelphia and Allegheny County, which is home to Pittsburgh.

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