Pennsylvania's first election 'audit' hearing flops after testimony 'didn’t actually find any election issues'

On Thursday, Pennsylvania kicked off the latest GOP-backed partisan ballot "audit" seeking to find voting irregularities in a state that former President Donald Trump narrowly lost. But according to BuzzFeed News, the first day of hearings ended in an awkward failure for proponents of Trump's "Big Lie," as their key witness "didn't actually find any election issues."

"Stewart Ulsh, the chair of Fulton County Pennsylvania's board of elections, was the only witness at Thursday's hearing," reported Sarah Mimms. "Ulsh had authorized a third party to conduct an election audit in his county at the request of a pro-Trump senator back in December. But in responding to questions from Democrats at the hearing, Ulsh repeatedly testified that the audit found nothing wrong with the election."

Fulton County already conducted its own audit, and didn't find any issues — but according to the report, the audit was updated after the fact by Republicans to leave ambiguity to continue pursuing baseless allegations of election fraud.

"As The Washington Post reported in June, a draft report declaring the election 'well run' and 'conducted in a diligent and effective manner,' was revised to include the line, 'This does not indicate that there were no issues with the election, just that they were not the fault of the County Election Commission or County Election Director' and then added some potential problems," notes BuzzFeed. "Asked about that edit on Thursday, Ulsh said, 'I didn't write the report, didn't tell them what to put in it.'"

This comes as Arizona is wrapping up its state senate-backed "audit" of Maricopa County, where a hired pro-Trump Florida security company known as "Cyber Ninjas" chased conspiracy theories like hunting for bamboo in the ballots.

It also comes as Wisconsin Republicans are staring their own audit, which is already being panned by former GOP officials.