Judge upholds penalties against Pennsylvania county in voting machine case – The Morning Call

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania judges ruled by Republicans who quietly allowed third parties to copy data from voting machines used in the 2020 election that former President Donald Trump lost this summer The county government has recommended that the state superior court impose civil contempt penalties.

Federal Judge Lenny Cohn Juvererer 77 page report Issued late Friday.

Based on the actions of Republican Commissioners Stuart Ursch and Randy Bunch, she said the county was “irritating, stubborn, It recommended that the judge admit that he engaged in dishonest conduct.” Out of Group means the machine is no longer available.

Elected Republican Cohn Juveriler ordered the county to pay a portion of the state’s attorney fees and turn over the Dominion Voting Systems machine in question to a third party for storage at the county’s expense. recommended.

The Dominion has been targeted by the right wing Conspiracy Theories About Supposedly Stolen Elections from Trump. Since then, he has filed numerous defamation lawsuits against his allies and right-wing broadcasters.

Messages were left for comment on Friday and Saturday to Pottstown attorney Thomas J. Carroll, who represents Fulton County, Ursch and Bunch. A message was left for Ursch on Saturday, but Bunch did not answer the call.

At three days of hearings earlier this month, the judge said, Ulsh and Bunch exercised their Fifth Amendment right to self-incrimination “in response to the majority of questions that were asked of them in direct cross-examination.” pointed out.

Corn Jubilee reports that State Supreme Court Commission After attorneys for Acting Secretary of State Lee Chapman sought a contempt order. It was based on disclosures by Bunch and Ulsh in a separate lawsuit in September that they allegedly copied.

After Bunch and Ulsh let one group in, the State Department ordered the county to stop using the rented Dominion machines. Wake TSI, access to them as part of an effort to help Trump’s failed efforts to reverse his defeat. Fulton County, Bunch, and Ursch sued to challenge the state’s order that the machines cannot be used in future elections, and Fulton County has used other machines since.

“All chains of control have been broken, and it is currently impossible to determine what the Dominion voting rig was in immediately after the Wake TSI inspection,” wrote Cohn-Juberler. “In other words, a spec-in inspection, as evidence of what Wake TSI did, renders the voting equipment unreliable and the effects irreversible.”

The State Department had said it was not authorized to provide such access to voting machines to other counties. Ulsh and Bunch were on the verge of allowing a third group, Envoy Sage LLC, to inspect the machine when the state’s Supreme Court put a hold on inspecting the machine in his January. The inspections scheduled for January were to include computers, electronic ballot books and ballot scanners.

The lawsuit over the state’s order barring Envoy Sage inspections and outside access was scheduled for oral argument in the Supreme Court last month before the State Department notified the judges of the Speckin inspections and sought penalties. The High Court dropped the case from the agenda and asked Cohn Juberler to investigate.

Cohn Jubelirer said a judge should not grant Chapman’s request to dismiss the lawsuits pending against her by Fulton County, Ulsh and Bunch. Instead, Cohn Jubelirer said during the ongoing litigation that all facts relating to machine inspection should be “finally established” in Chapman’s favor.

Rural Fulton County is overwhelmingly Republican, casting more than 85% of the vote for Trump in 2020.