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As a senator from the state of Pennsylvania and a candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano opposed the widespread fraud, which he believes is responsible for the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020.
He promised to de-certify voting machines in constituencies where he suspected the result had been falsified.
And he said the Republican-controlled legislature should have the power to take control of the crucial choice of which presidential voters to send to Washington.
As governor, Mastriano will have the opportunity not only to speak but also to act. The Trump-backed 58-year-old, who won a Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday, will have a significant impact on the administration of state elections on the battlefield if he prevails in November, worrying experts who fear a democratic collapse over the presidential election. 2024 competition.
These concerns are particularly acute in Pennsylvania over the fact that the governor has the unusual authority to directly appoint a secretary of state who serves as chief election official and must sign the results. If he or she refuses, chaos may ensue.
“The biggest risk is for the secretary of state to simply say, ‘I’m not going to certify the election, despite what the court says and despite what the evidence shows, because I’m concerned about the suspicions,'” said Clifford Levine, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Election Lawyer. “You will start to have a breakdown in the legal system and the whole process.
Mastriano’s supporters seem to be well aware of the stakes. A video posted on the Telegram by election activist Ivan Ryklin of Mastriano’s victory party on Tuesday shows the candidate smiling as Raiklin congratulates him on his victory and adds with a raised thumb “and 20 electoral votes” a reference to influence of the state in the electoral college.
“Oh, yeah,” Mastriano replied.
Mastriano did not respond to voicemail or email sent to a media campaign account.
But Mastriano told Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump adviser who now hosts a podcast popular on the right, that he had already chosen the man he would appoint as secretary of state if elected.
“When it comes to cleaning up the election, I mean I’m in a good position as governor,” he said in a April 23 speech in Bannon’s War Room podcast. “I have a person who is ready for voting reforms, who travels around the nation and knows the electoral reform very well. This man agreed to be my secretary of state. “
He added that he plans to desert the voting machines in several Pennsylvania counties, a power granted to the secretary of state under state law. “This will be a major issue for me,” he said.
Supported by Trump’s late approval on Saturday, Mastriano, a retired army colonel and U.S. senator elected for the first time in 2019, defeated eight other Republican nominees, including former Congressman Lou Barletta.
A man familiar with Trump’s thinking said he decided to support Mastriano because he believed Mastriano would win on Tuesday, and he wanted to claim victory in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, no matter what. “He was hedging his bets,” the man said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions.
Other advisers say some of the candidates, such as Barletta, have been more loyal to him over the years, but Trump has rejected the argument.
Trump was sometimes annoyed by Mastriano, two former advisers said, because the state senator failed to gain strength to help Trump cancel the 2020 presidential election. But Mastriano kept in touch with Trump and was willing to talk about the issue of electoral fraud. when others wanted to move on, said two of these people.
Mastriano told Bannon on Saturday, shortly after Trump publicly announced his support, that he saw the nod as an “excuse.”
“President Trump is loyal to those who stand up for the truth and try to fight for the integrity of the vote in our country,” he said.
Mastriano was a key figure in the Stop Theft movement in Pennsylvania, mistakenly claiming that President Biden’s victory with more than 80,000 votes in the state was the result of widespread fraud.
In the weeks following the November 2020 election, Mastriano held a public hearing in Gettysburg with then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and helped commission an unregistered audit of voting machines in a provincial county in Pennsylvania funded by Trump’s allies.
It was like this deceptive thing. ”: How Trump’s allies’ pressure to undermine the results of 2020 through ballot reviews began quietly in Pennsylvania
Although challenges to Biden’s victory were rejected by state and federal courts, Mastriano proposed a resolution declaring the state election results in doubt and allowing the Republican-controlled state legislature to appoint presidential voters. He told Bannon on November 28, 2020, that the goal was “to reaffirm our power to elect voters for president.”
He argued that the Pennsylvania General Assembly had “surrendered to the popular vote” and insisted that the Constitution allowed the legislature to “reaffirm our privileges as a General Assembly and monitor voters to go to the right people.”
Mastriano then traveled to Washington for a rally on behalf of Trump on January 6, 2021. Videos show him in a crowd moving toward the Capitol as another man removed a bicycle rack that blocked the sidewalk. He said he was following police lines and left the area when it became clear that the event was no longer peaceful and he did not enter the Capitol building.
Leading Republican Republican candidates in Pennsylvania were in Washington on Jan. 6
Following the 2020 election, Mastriano proposed a series of measures in the Pennsylvania Senate that would dramatically change the state’s election.
He proposed removing the requirement for observers to live in the constituencies sent to observe and imposing new penalties on election officials who block access to election observers. He said he was against any vote by mail. And he proposed a bill that would remove the Secretary of State’s power to observe elections and pass it on to a new election commission with members appointed by both the governor and the legislature, expanding the powers of the General Assembly.
As of now, Pennsylvania is one of only three states where the governor directly appoints the state’s top election official.
One important function that the governor performs himself is to sign the official certificate for the votes of the electoral college and it is not clear what would be in defense if the governor refuses to do so. “It will be chaos,” said Jennifer Morel, a former election administrator and partner in the consulting firm Elections Group. “We would be in the same precarious situation we were in on January 6. “In Pennsylvania, operational decisions to hold elections are made locally. The secretary of state can issue guidelines, but has limited powers to enforce them, which could be a test of the electorate’s ability to manipulate the system, Morel said.
But she said an appointee who accepts electoral conspiracy theories could use the stance to reinforce allegations that, even if false, could undermine public confidence in the system.
In a gubernatorial debate in April, Mastriano said he would appoint a secretary of state who would require all voters in the state to renew their registration to be eligible to run in future elections, a proposal experts say is likely to violate federal law.
“I have seen better elections in Afghanistan than in Pennsylvania,” Mastriano said.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, has signaled that Mastriano’s rhetoric about the January 6, 2021, election and presence in the District of Columbia will underpin his argument that Mastriano is too extreme for the swing state. .
“When the Republicans in Harrisburg tried to undermine our election, I took them to court to defend our democracy. “My opponent allowed them to attack by standing idly by and even attending the January 6 uprising,” he tweeted Wednesday.
Although Trump can now add Mastriano to his valuable list of successful initial approvals, the nod came so late and after Mastriano was already leading the polls that he did not consider himself decisive.
“Trump’s intervention jumped in front of the parade as he crossed the finish line,” said Matt Bruylett, chief executive of Commonwealth Partners, a pro-business group that responded to Trump’s support for Mastriano, urging other candidates to clear the field. and a rally behind Barletta. “If Doug loses in November, Trump will actually own more than he does.
Some Republicans are worried that Mastriano’s exclusive focus on 2020 could turn away voters who believe Biden’s victory is legitimate or who are otherwise more interested in looking to the future.
David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser, said Mastriano would have a hard time winning a general election in Pennsylvania. Urban said Mastriano would have to moderate his message and was not sure it was a likely possibility.
“In the general election, people need to moderate their message and return to the middle. If he does, he may be a viable candidate. If he does not want to do that, he will not be a viable candidate, “he said.
Dave Ball, chairman of the Washington County Republican Party, agreed that Mastriano would have to reach out. During the primary elections, Mastriano placed his position in the 2020 elections at the center of his field. “This is his whole campaign,” Ball said.
But he said Mastriano would have to build a broader coalition and program to win in November. “He needs to appeal to independent, moderate Republicans and everything else,” Ball said. “Given what we’ve seen so far, this is going to be a trick. He will have to …
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