Former President Donald Trump's lie that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him by Democrats engaging in widespread election fraud continues to erode Republican voters' faith in the American elections process, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud (as confirmed by Trump's own Justice Department).
A partisan audit of Maricopa County, Arizona's votes, forced by the state's Republican legislature, has been marred by conspiracy theories and partisan grandstanding. Though the long-delayed report of the audit's results has yet to be released, it's inspired other states with Republican legislatures to launch audits of their own.
Pennsylvania's Republican legislature doubled down on the Republican crusade against public trust in democracy when the state's Senate Intergovernmental Affairs committee issued more than a dozen subpoenas seeking voters' personal information, including names, drivers' license numbers, birth dates, and even partial social security numbers.
The subpoenas were issued under the guise of a "forensic investigation," but the committee's minority leader, State Senator Jay Costa, blasted the development:
"Senate Democrats, going forward, intend to take legal action against this gross abuse of power by filing a lawsuit, challenging in the courts, and to ask the courts to declare the Senate Republicans' actions in violation of separation of power, as well as declaring that they had no authority to issue these subpoenas."
President Joe Biden won the state by more than 80 thousand votes, and multiple court cases only reinforced the validity of his victory.
The committee's efforts were universally criticized.
Hi, from Pennsylvania and no thank you. The local GOP already target voters with intimidation here.https://twitter.com/dtohl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— Sarah Reese Jones (@Sarah Reese Jones) 1631699128
I for one do not want PA Senate Republicans to have my PennDOT number or any of my SSN.https://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— Ryan Yeager (@Ryan Yeager) 1631713123
A reminder that the goal of the GOP is to undermine all faith in democracy so that as they steal more and more elections it will seem normal.https://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— Black. Lives. Matter. (@Black. Lives. Matter.) 1631662266
This is beyond invasion of privacy and voter intimidationhttps://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— Boomer Bob was BobA1959 I\u2019m Pissed Off and Angry (@Boomer Bob was BobA1959 I\u2019m Pissed Off and Angry) 1631699225
If you\u2019re still voting for Republicans at this point I don\u2019t even know. The Dems have some silly problems but at least they believe in democracy.https://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— Jean-Michel Connard \uea00 (@Jean-Michel Connard \uea00) 1631668048
As a PA voter, this weak attempt at voter intimidation just enrages me and shows everyone how insane the GOP is now.https://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— Jim Miani (@Jim Miani) 1631711333
American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Marian K. Schneider expressed privacy concerns to the New York Times, saying:
"That's a really bad idea to have private information floating around in a Senate caucus, and it's really not clear how the data is going to be used, who's going to be looking at it, who can have access, how it's going to be secured. And it's unclear to me why they even need the personally identifying information."
Others expressed similar concerns.
AKA: GOP plans to create personal data treasure trove they\u2019re under qualified to protect from hackershttps://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— Ryan Mahan (@Ryan Mahan) 1631663484
They should just post it publicly online, enroll every registered voter in identity theft monitoring, and skip the interim steps.https://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— John Infante (@John Infante) 1631667734
that's a data breach just waiting to happen.https://twitter.com/DTOhl/status/1437905473072676864\u00a0\u2026— michele collins (@michele collins) 1631708575
Democrats in the state have vowed to seek legal action.
@sama/X
