PITTSBURGH, PA – Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough today issued an order halting the further certification of the 2020 presidential election until a hearing is held Friday morning. The hearing is not related to any cases brought before the courts by President Trump’s campaign team, instead it was filed by Pennsylvania Republicans and Congressman Mike Kelly.
Kelly has contested the election where the media declared Joe Biden as the next President of the United States.
“In our representative republic, it is not the media who declares the winner of elections. Right now, the Trump Campaign is engaged in several court cases to determine the integrity of the vote in multiple states. None of those states have officially certified their vote counts, and investigations into voting irregularities are ongoing. The winner of the election will be determined by the law, not media projections,” Kelly said.
Kelly has also been critical of the media, “The same people who have spent years peddling the Russia hoax and claiming @realDonaldTrump is an illegitimate president are now telling us to just accept the unofficial election results that have shaken Americans’ trust in our electoral system.”
Last week, Kelly introduced a bill in Congress that would prevent many of the problems that plagued the 2020 election.
H.R. 8753 is the House companion to Senator Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) S. 4893. The legislation would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require states to have certain election procedures in place to be eligible for funding under that law, including:
- a law that bans the practice of ballot harvesting in state elections;
- a law that permits observation of polling places and vote counting by at least two appointed representatives of each campaign;
- a law requiring that mail-in and absentee ballots be counted and recorded immediately upon receipt with results kept secret until the polls have closed on the date of the election;
- a law requiring that ballot counting begins when the polls close and does not stop until all ballots are counted;
- a law providing video surveillance of absentee and mail-in ballot drop boxes;
- a law requiring election officials to be transparent regarding plans for staffing and equipment in advance of election day;
- and a law requiring that municipal entities responsible for certifying elections conduct audits of their voting systems, the findings of which are to be made public.
The United States Congress has jurisdiction over federal elections, and in addition to the above requirements for states to be eligible for federal funding, this legislation w