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Full transcript of Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committe – dated 25th November 2020

[Transcript commences at 05:00]

Senator Dave

Argall:                   The appointed time having come and gone, let’s ask our state senators and our state representatives to join us. Today’s Senate Majority Policy Committee hearing is the second of our hearings this year, designed to help us learn more about the conduct of the 2020 elections in Pennsylvania. Today’s hearing was requested by Senator Doug Mastriano, who in addition to serving the 264,000 residents of the 33^rd District in Adams, Cumberland, Franklin and York counties, also serves as the Chair of the Senate’s Intergovernmental Operations Committee.As Doctor Mastriano can attest, this subject is an excellent example not of the normal layer cake model of intergovernmental operations but of the marble cake model. We have examples of local government, county government, state government and federal government, all very much involved in the design and conduct of an election. And as we’ve seen, not always in a logical, rational, or understandable model. I have frequently reminded the students in the college classes which I have taught, as well as more recently our own Governor, that senators and representatives and governors are not kings, we’re not judges, we’re not dictators. We are agents of public opinion, elected by the people for a fixed term as lawmakers, to provide oversight on behalf of the public over our government agencies and of course as lawmakers. We’re here today because we have all been receiving massive numbers of phone calls and emails and personal comments when we’re out walking our dogs in our neighborhoods about the conduct of this election. My office has received a record number of contacts, over 25,000 phone calls and emails as of yesterday. We all know that Pennsylvania’s Secretary of the Commonwealth changed the guidance to election officials the day before the November 3^rd election, which added a completely new element of doubt to our process. Issues that should have been resolved by the legislature, as recommended by Supreme Court Justice Max Baer were instead carried out by the Secretary without the approval of the Senator of the House. This committee held a similar event in January of 2020 on recent changes to our state’s election laws. At that time, the Secretary of the Commonwealth assured us that this process would be carried out smoothly. The large number of complaints which we have received from our constituents tells us a very different story. That’s why we’re here today again, as agents of public opinion. Senator Mastriano and his staff have assembled a number of witnesses who will share their experiences with us regarding the conduct of this year’s election and we look forward to listening to that testimony. But before we turn there, I want to introduce my good friend, my caucus administrator, and as of December 1^st, our incoming Majority Leader, our congratulations to Kim Ward, thank you for joining us. Please Kim, your statement.

Senator Kim

Ward:                    Thank you Senator A close their ears to what’s happened during this election and sadly, many in the media that are complicit and want to write off what happened. So for me, on this battlefield and remembering what happened 157 years ago and especially 157 years ago last week, where Abraham Lincoln gave his most famous address. And I think his final sentence captures why we’re here today. He said that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish in the earth, and everything is at stake in what happened there in this election cycle, everything, the Republic is at stake. This is no game for us. And for any veteran in this room here, who wore the uniform, such as Brigadier General Scott Perry, thank you for being here, sir, put their lives on the line here, fighting for a country and see that there’s a group in this state and country willing to throw away our valuable and precious freedoms here for power. You know, for me… [applause]…there you go. And Mr Mayor, it’s going to be a fantastic hearing today. Despite pleas from our citizens, the governor refuses to even consider that there is any shenanigans in the elections here, in our state, a state of 13 million people, and he wants to discount because his guy won, that nothing bad happened, and that’s just unacceptable. If there’s any hint of fraud out there, we need to investigate. Any governor serving the people of this Commonwealth would put aside his petty politics and find out the truth. If anyone was defrauded. And at this point here, he’s unwilling to do that. Let me point out some hard facts here. We are in Adams County, named after our 2^nd President, John Adams, who famously said, facts are stubborn things. Let me lay out several of these inconvenient truths, as Al Gore would have us think. There have been many allegations of voting law violations across the state and a governor serving the people would have to move heaven and earth to ensure no-one was defrauded, but yet, he’s not moved to action. And even his Secretary of State, of course, says that there was no shenanigans of great concern. And I would remind everyone that I was a no vote on the confirmation of Kathleen Boockvar four times [inaudible 12:09] interacted with her. I asked her why are elections in Afghanistan more secure than in Pennsylvania? And she sat there and blinked and couldn’t give me a straight answer. That the elections are more safe and secure in a war-torn country, devastated by conflict since 1979, and what is going on here? The place [inaudible 12:27] this all started in 1776 and we can’t get an election right. You’ve got to be kidding me here. And so as a result of her inaction, the governor’s inaction, refusal to even look into any of the allegations and to discount the very essential freedoms of our citizens. We are here today to try to find out what the heck happened in the election. You know, and likewise, our Attorney General, our senior law enforcement official here…you know, instead of being focused on making sure things were lined up and kosher, before one vote was counted in Pennsylvania, the day before the election, declared Biden the winner. I mean, there’s nothing to see here? Could you imagine if the shoe was on the other foot? Would the media be so gracious and merciful and kind if it was a Republican? Absolutely not. And so Houston, we have a problem here. You know, one of the most troubling things in this whole endeavour here, and it’s not just because of the COVID, it’s just a lack of transparency and accountability. So we’re here to start shedding light on the darkness. And then of course, we have a Supreme Court that rewrote election law. You know, Act 77 [inaudible 13:43] and we could debate that. But the real problem was is one that Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided they’re going to write legislation and rewrite our law. And because of that obviously Pennsylvania, they got a lot of problems there and that opened the door to all the shenanigans and abuses and folly that we’re dealing with here in the state this day. So what’s going on here? Thousands of people from across the Commonwealth have reached out to us, tens of thousands, asking and demanding action. They deserve it. And as a result of the inability of our executive branch to do their job, we’re stepping in here. We’re co-equal members and we’re going to do our job. We’re looking for transparency and truth. There’s going to be no grandstanding here. We’re after facts. And we’re going to have a good layout here of what happened and you’re going to have to decide, good people of Pennsylvania, on what happened and whether there’s a strong case to be made or not. You know, the forgotten men and women of our great state feel betrayed by their government. And I’m with them. I feel the betrayal as well. So we undertake these proceedings today to find out what happened and then hopefully come up with an approach where that never happens again. And the issues are galore. You’re going to hear about poll watchers being denied access, or election software vendors refuse to testify before the General Assembly. What have they got to hide? Do we expect the people to trust their government? And we’ve got to earn their trust. And this is no game. And the very Republic very much is at stake. Anyone who loves this country has to put aside their petty parson politics and allow the light to shine where it is. And we’re going to find the truth and celebrate it. You know, as a soldier, and I was elected member of the state senate, I’m not going to stand aside, and neither are the members around me are as well. We’re going to fight the good fight for freedom. It’s to cure our Republic. Too many good men and women have gone before us who’ve given their lives here and if they cast it aside now for power play, it’s unacceptable. It’s not going to happen [applause]. We do our great men and women in uniform and those who lay down their lives and gave the last full measure of devotion a great disservice if we stand aside and allow bureaucrats and corrupt politicians to steal their voice and maybe even steal an election. We’ll find out. John 8:36 says that if Jesus sets you free, you’re free indeed. We’re going to walk as free people in Pennsylvania. This is where it all started. We choose this day to walk as free men and women and honour the sacrifice not only Jesus on Calvary but also in honour of the sacrifice of brave men and women in uniform who fought for and secured our freedoms. We will be relentless in our pursuit of the transparency, of accountability and truth. The time for dithering, politics and games is over. The time for truth and justice is now. In conclusion, as Benjamin Franklin was leaving Constitutional Hall in 1787, he was approached by Mrs Powell, who ran up to him – we surmise she knew him personally – and she said, well, Mr Franklin, what do we have? A Monarchy or a Republic? And he said, a Republic, if you can keep it. This is our time to keep this Republic. Thank you and God bless you.

Senator oint in time because all these ballots came in folded, tri-folded, right? And all the ballots had to be flattened. And so they would take the ballots and put them under big stacks of…reams and reams of paper to flatten them out and then there’d be workers kneading the ballots to try and make them so that they could go through the machines. And when everybody’s saying, well you haven’t counted anything for, you know, x number of hours and they said, well, we’re trying to flatten the ballots. Yeah, no it just…it was absurd and obscene. So at any rate, that was that and when everybody was waiting, that’s what was going on, they’re flattening the ballots for the most part. And then there was about six machines where they were feeding the ballots.

And while they had six machines feeding the ballots, as they would go in, two or three would kick out to a different tray than the other tray and workers sometimes would take the ones that weren’t kicked out and put them in a stack and then sometimes he’d run all of them through again and sometimes run two or three. We never had any idea if they were zeroing out a machine, what they were doing, I asked the County solicitor who was there, I said, what’s going on? He told me that this was a Pitney Bowes representative, working there that had been sworn in as a County representative and that sometimes the ballot machine doesn’t count those things. And then so he runs them through and but there was absolutely no provenance to what was going on in the counting machines. I have no idea because of course they would just take stacks of ballots that had been sitting under reams of paper trying to be flattened and then run them through the machine. So we have no idea about that.e details of that. But it is the subject of another lawsuit and the decision of your Supreme Court that is completely outrageous is the one in which they say that present means just being there.

I mean, there was a movie with Peter Sellers called Being There. I don’t know if you ever saw it, but he was a potted plant. That’s totally absurd to think that when you passed the rule that there should be present representatives of both sides or all sides, that you meant for them was heard in a court of law, where a just ruling is found to protect every legal vote that was cast here in this election in November and to discard all those votes that were not legally cast. And I think as we’ve been overwhelmed as was mentioned by the senators at the beginning of this meeting that as we came through election day and prior up to that we’d had three and a half million people filing for unemployment because of the unconstitutional dictates of Wolf to shut down businesses and stop people from going to work in Pennsylvania and we were just overwhelmed with those calls, but since election day we have been overwhelmed with calls from individuals who are distraught, distraught over the future of our republic, the future of our future elections and being able to ensure that people are having their legitimate, legal votes counted to elect who’s going to govern them. And right now with the examples that were shown here today with these witnesses, a lot of the people have been calling my office and emailing me.

They are demanding action, and as we’ve heard today there’s a lot of citizens out there that have important information that needs to be shared in the courtroom to ensure that that these fraudulent activities and it’s not – I mean a lot of times when people talk about fraud they’re thinking of impersonation – but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about fraudulent activities as far as a fraudulent election because they’ve not they’ve not abided by the laws that have been passed by we the people through our elected legislature as the US constitution, as our state constitution, as our laws provide for to facilitate our elections. So Mayor Giuliani, as we move forward…and I stand with Senator Mastriano and others that are there today. I actually sent an email out while I was listening to some of the testimony today given at the hearing to the whole Republican caucus and the Pennsylvania House to encourage them to sign on and listen to what was happen