[WASHINGTONTIMES] The Public Interest Legal Foundation went to Pennsylvania with a list of tens of thousands of people who were likely dead, but still on the state’s voter rolls in the weeks before the 2020 election.
The state was totally uninterested, according to Christian Adams, the organization’s founder. But once the election was over, Mr. Adams says, the state changed its tune.
It went into mediation with PILF, agreed to look into the list and even agreed to a settlement paying some of the group’s lawyers’ fees.
The kicker, though, was that Pennsylvania prosecutors even brought charges against a man who, according to PILF’s data, had registered his dead wife to vote, then requested her ballot in the 2020 election.
"All of the sudden they’re happy to settle, and to clean up their rolls," Mr. Adams told The Washington Times.
He said it’s not a fluke. The aftermath of the 2020 elections have opened new opportunities for election-integrity advocates, who say they’re seeing signs of better cooperation from at least some jurisdictions.
Last year’s contest exposed what those involved in voter administration have known for years — national elections are not an exact science, but rather an approximation of the will of voters in the weeks surrounding early November.
How close an approximation is still heatedly debated.
But it’s become clear to many that dirty voter rolls, lost or miscounted votes and mishandled ballots are more common than one might have imagined.
The difference in 2020 is that one of the candidates, then-President Trump, argued those usual flaws, combined with more preposterous speculation about machines switching votes and dumping ballots, "stole" the White House.
While the outlandish claims still have traction among some Trump supporters, the more complicated work of cleaning up the very real problems with dead people, noncitizens and other bogus voters remains.
Mr. Adams said his experience with Pennsylvania shows that in some states, the new attention from 2020 has helped.
"A virtual army has arisen of the grass roots, who are not worried about magic voting machines, and recognize the real work of election administration. These people are pressuring states to follow the law and remove dead voters," Mr. Adams said.
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