Doug Mastriano lost big — but his supporters ‘flout the will of the people’: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
The GOP nominee for governor in Pennsylvania lost by fourteen points in the midterm elections, but supporters of Doug Mastriano are expanding their election denial efforts despite the lopsided outcome.
On Tuesday, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Mastriano supporters are now seeking to force hand recounts in multiple Pennsylvania counties.
"It’s not clear the effort will succeed in requiring counties to retally their votes — some courts have already thrown out the requests — and they certainly won’t give Mastriano, the defeated Republican nominee for governor, the 781,000 votes by which he lost to Democratic Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro. Recounts change election results very little, if at all," the newspaper reported. "But the baseless efforts threaten to sow confusion about the validity of this month’s election, tie up state courts, and disrupt officials’ ongoing work to audit and certify results by Monday’s deadline. It’s the latest front for an election denial movement that helped lift Mastriano to prominence, and has repeatedly tried to find and exploit vulnerabilities in the state’s election system."
Meanwhile, in Arizona, MAGA activists are demanding a revote.
"The groups — organizing over social media and some claiming they are working in conjunction with Mastriano’s campaign — filed more than 100 petitions in at least a dozen counties over the last week, according to interviews and court records. Elections officials said they heard of at least 17 more counties where petitions have been filed and records weren’t immediately available," the newspaper reported.
Elections are overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of State, which issued a statement condemning the push for recounts.
"These orchestrated moves to delay certification of the vote at the county level are a deliberate attempt to flout the will of the people as expressed in the election results,” the newspaper reported.
One county elections director told The Inquirer described it as a "merry-go-round of nonsense."
Read the full report.
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