Top Pennsylvania election official says 2020 tie-in claimed ‘election was fair’

Pennsylvania’s top election official said Sunday that the 2020 commonwealth election was “accurate,” as he said Pennsylvania is “not susceptible to any kind of general voter fraud” — and said officials are preparing with increased security to combat threats as election day approaches.

“Repeatedly, in many dozens of cases in 2020, each of these cases has argued that our elections were fair and that we were not susceptible to any kind of widespread voter fraud or anything like that,” said Commonwealth Secretary- the said Pennsylvania’s Al Schmidt Sunday, “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

The issue of election integrity is at the forefront of battleground states in Pennsylvania, where last week Lancaster County District Attorney reported incidents of voter registration fraud among a pool of approximately 2,500 ballots. Schmidt said the country contacted his office “immediately” for guidance and was conducting an investigation “responsibly.” And the top election official said he was working with counties to provide the necessary resources “so that in 2024 we have free, fair, safe and secure elections like we had in 2020.”

Meanwhile, election officials are battling threats against poll workers. Schmidt said that in 2020, officials had to “scramble to figure out when the threats came in,” while pointing to changes put in place since then, including an election threat task force made up of enforcement partners federal, state and local laws and election administration. He noted that open lines of communication and clear responsibilities also made the community better prepared.

“That way, if any of the ugliness that we experienced in 2020 comes back, everyone will be prepared,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt pledged to certify election results even if the winner is of the opposite political party, as did Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who appeared on “Face the Nation” Sunday.

Fontes said the state’s safety and security protocols surrounding the tabulation of election results are a complete departure from recent years.

“It’s absolutely, completely different from 2020. In fact, I remember in 2018, our biggest security threat was a rattlesnake in the Pinnacle Peak Precinct parking lot,” Fontes said. “So this is a radically different set of circumstances that we’re facing, but we’re prepared and we’re going to have a safe election.”